%A  Chance  Acquaintance. 


BY 


W.   D.   HOWELLS. 


BOSTON: 

JAMES   R.   OSGOOD   AND   COMPANY, 

Late  Ticknor  &  Fields,  and  Fields,  Qsgood,  &  Co. 
.1877. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1873, 

BY  JAMES   R.    OSGOOD   AND    COMPANY, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co., 
CAMBRIDGE. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  UP  THE  SAGUEXAY 1 

II.  MRS.  ELLISON'S  LITTLE  MANCEUVRB        .  37 

III.  Ox  THE  WAY  BACK  TO  QUEBEC  ...  67 

IV.  MR.  ARBUTON'S  INSPIRATION  ...  84 
V.  MR.  ARBUTON  MAKES  HIMSELF  AGREEABLE  100 

VI.  A  LETTER  OF  KITTY'S         ....  121 

VII.  LOVE'S  YOUNG  DREAM     ....  139 

VIII.  NEXT  MORNING   .        .        .        .        .        .  160 

IX.  MR.  ARBUTON'S  INFATUATION          .  — .  180 

X.  MR.  ARBUTON  SPEAKS 194 

XI.  KITTY  ANSWERS       .....  204 

XII.  THE  PICNIC  AT  CHATEAU-BIGOT  .        .        .  220 

XIII.  ORDEAL 244 

XIV.  AFTERWARDS  277 


A  CHANCE  ACQUAINTANCE. 


i. 

UP  THE  SAGUENAY. 

jjj|N"  the  forward  promenade  of  the  Saguenay 
boat  which  had  been  advertised  to  leave 
Quebec  at  seven  o'clock  on  Tuesday  morn 
ing,  Miss  Kitty  Ellison  sat  tranquilly  expectant  of 
the  joys  which  its  departure  should  bring,  and  tol 
erantly  patient  of  its  delay ;  for  if  all  the  Sague 
nay  had  not  been  in  promise,  she  would  have 
thought  it  the  greatest  happiness  just  to  have  that 
prospect  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Quebec.  The 
sun  shone  with  a  warm  yellow  light  on  the  Upper 
Town,  with  its  girdle  of  gray  wall,  and  on  the  rod 
flag  that  drowsed  above  the  citadel,  and  was  a 
friendly  lustre  on  the  tinned  roofs  of  the  Lower 
Town ;  while  away  off  to  the  south  and  east  and 
west  wandered  the  purple  hills  and  the  farmlit 
plains  in  such  dewy  shadow  and  effulgence  as 
would  have  been  enough  to  make  the  heaviest 
heart  glad.  Near  at  hand  the  river  was  busy 

1  282128 


.2^  i/i  v>1  '  ;A:  Change  Acquaintance. 

with  every  kind  of  craft,  and  in  the  distance 
was  mysterious  with  silvery  vapors ;  little  breaths 
of  haze,  like  an  ethereal  colorless  flame,  ex 
haled  from  its  surface,  and  it  all  glowed'  with  a 
lovely  inner  radiance.  In  the  middle  distance  a 
black  ship  was  heaving  anchor  and  setting  sail, 
and  the  voice  of  the  seamen  came  soft  and  sad 
and  yet  wildly  hopeful  to  the  dreamy  ear  of  the 
young  girl,  whose  soul  at  once  went  round  the 
world  before  the  ship,  and  then  made  haste  back 
again  to  the  promenade  of  the  Saguenay  boat.  She 
sat  leaning  forward  a  little  with  her  hands  fallen 
into  her  lap,  letting  her  unmastered  thoughts  play 
as  they  would  in  memories  and  hopes  around  the 
consciousness  that  she  was  the  happiest  girl  in  the 
world,  and  blest  beyond  desire  or  desert.  To  have 
left  home  as  she  had  done,  equipped  for  a  single 
day  at  Niagara,  and  then  to  have  come  adventu 
rously  on,  by  grace  of  her  cousin's  wardrobe,  as  it 
were,  to  Montreal  and  Quebec ;  to  be  now  going  up 
the  Saguenay,  and  finally  to  be  destined  to  return 
home  by  way  of  Boston  and  New  York;— this 
was  more  than  any  one  human  being  had  a  right 
to ;  and,  as  she  had  written  home  to  the  girls,  she 
felt  that  her  privileges  ought  to  be  divided  up 
among  all  the  people  of  Eriecreek.  She  was  very 
grateful  to  Colonel  Ellison  and  Fanny  for  affording 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  3 

her  these  advantages  ;  but  they  being  now  out  of 
sight  in  pursuit  of  state-rooms,  she  was  not  think 
ing  of  them  in  relation  to  her  pleasure  in  the 

0 

morning  scene,  but  was  rather  regretting  the  ab 
sence  of  a  lady  with  whom  they  had  travelled 
from  Niagara,  and  to  whom  she  imagined  she 
would  that  moment  like  to  say  something  in  praise 
of  the  prospect.  This  lady  was  a  Mrs.  Basil  March 
of  Boston ;  and  though  it  was  her  wedding  jour 
ney  and  her  husband's  presence  ought  to  have 
absorbed  her,  she  and  Miss  Kitty  had  sworn  a 
sisterhood,  and  were  pledged  to  see  each  other 
before  long  at  Mrs.  March's  home  in  Boston.  In 
her  absence,  now,  Kitty  thought  what  a  very 
charming  person  she  was,  and  wondered  if  all 
Boston  people  were  really  like  her,  so  easy  and 
friendly  and  hearty.  In  her  letter  she  had  told 
the  girls  to  tell  her  Uncle  Jack  that  he  had  not 
rated  Boston  people  a  bit  too  high,  if  she  were  to 
judge  from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  March,  and  that  she  was 
sure  they  would  help  her  as  far  as  they  could  to 
carry  out  his  instructions  when  she  got  to  Boston. 
These  instructions  were  such  as  might  seem  pre 
posterous  if  no  more  particular  statement  in  regard 
to  her  Uncle  Jack  were  made,  but  will  be  imagin 
able  enough,  I  hope,  when  he  is  a  little  described. 
The  Ellisons  were  a  West  Virginia  family  who  had 


4  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

wandered  up  into  a  corner  of  Northwestern  New 
York,  because  Dr.  Ellison  (unceremoniously  known 
to  Kitty  as  Uncle  Jack)  was  too  much  an  aboli 
tionist  to  live  in  a  slaveholding  State  with  safety 
to  himself  or  comfort  to  his  neighbors.  Here  his 
family  of  three  boys  and  two  girls  had  grown  up, 
and  hither  in  time  had  come  Kitty,  the  only  child 
of  his  youngest  brother,  who  had  gone  first  to 
Illinois  and  thence,  from  the  pretty  constant  ad 
versity  of  a  country  editor,  to  Kansas,  where  he 
joined  the  Free  State  party  and  fell  in  one  of  the 
border  fends.  Her  mother  had  died  soon  after, 
and  Dr.  Ellison's  heart  bowed  itself  tenderly  over 
the  orphan.  She  was  something  not  only  dear, 
but  sacred  to  him  as  the  child  of  a  martyr  to  the 
highest  cause  on  earth  ;  and  the  love  of  the  whole 
family  encompassed  her.  One  of  the  boys  had 
brought  her  from  Kansas  when  she  was  yet  very 
little,  and  she  had  grown  up  among  them  as  their 
youngest  sister  ;  but  the  doctor,  from  a  tender 
scruple  against  seeming  to  usurp  the  place  of  his 
brother  in  her  childish  thought,  would  not  let  her 
call  him  father,  and  in  obedience  to  the  rule  which 
she  soon  began  to  give  their  love,  they  all  turned 
and  called  him  Uncle  Jack  with  her.  Yet  the 
Ellisons,  though  they  loved  their  little  cousin,  did 
not  spoil  her,  —  neither  the  doctor,  nor  his  great 


A    Chance  Acquaintance.  5 

grown-up  sons  whom  she  knew  as  the  boys,  nor 
his  daughters  whom  she  called  the  girls,  though 
they  were  wellnigh  women  when  she  came  to 
them.  She  was  her  uncle's  pet  and  most  inti 
mate  friend,  riding  with  him  on  his  professional 
visits  till  she  became  as  familiar  a  feature  of 
his  equipage  as  the  doctor's  horse  itself;  and  he 
educated  her  in  those  extreme  ideas,  tempered  by 
humor,  which  formed  the  character  of  himself  and 
his  family.  They  loved  Kitty,  and  played  with 
her,  and  laughed  at  her  when  she  needed  ridicul 
ing  ;  they  made  a  jest  of  their  father  on  the  one 
subject  on  which  he  never  jested,  and  even  the 
antislavery  cause  had  its  droll  points  turned  to 
the  light.  They  had  seen  danger  and  trouble 
enough  at  different  times  in  its  service,  but  no 
enemy  ever  got  more  amusement  out  of  it.  Their 
house  was  a  principal  entrepot  of  the  underground 
railroad,  and  they  were  always  helping  anxious 
travellers  over  the  line ;  but  the  boys  seldom  came 
back  from  an  excursion  to  Canada  without  adven 
tures  to  keep  the  family  laughing  for  a  week;  and 
they  made  it  a  serious  business  to  study  the  comic 
points  of  their  beneficiaries,  who  severally  lived  in 
the  family  records  by  some  grotesque  mental  or 
physical  trait.  They  had  an  irreverent  name 
among  themselves  for  each  of  the  humorless  abo- 


6  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

lition  lecturers  who  unfailingly  abode  with  them 
on  their  rounds  ;  and  these  brethren  and  sisters, 
as  they  called  them,  paid  with  whatever  was 
laughable  in  them  for  the  substantial  favors  they 
received. 

Miss  Kitty,  having  the  same  natural  bent,  began 
even  as  a  child  to  share  in  these  harmless  reprisals, 
and  to  look  at  life  with  the  same  wholesomely  fan 
tastic  vision.  But  she  remembered  one  abolition 
visitor  of  whom  none  of  them  made  fun,  but  treated 
with  a  serious  distinction  and  regard,  —  an  old 
man  with  a  high,  narrow  forehead,  and  thereon  a 
thick  upright  growth  of  gray  hair  ;  who  looked  at 
her  from  under  bushy  brows  with  eyes  as  of  blue 
flame,  and  took  her  on  his  knee  one  night  and 
sang  to  her  "  Blow  ye  the  trumpet,  blow  !  "  He 
and  her  uncle  had  been  talking  of  some  indefinite, 
far-off  place  that  they  called  Boston,  in  terms  that 
commended  it  to  her  childish  apprehension  as  very 
little  less  holy  than  Jerusalem,  and  as  the  home  of 
all  the  good  and  great  people  outside  of  Palestine. 

In  fact,  Boston  had  always  been  Dr.  Ellison's 
foible.  In  the  beginning  of  the  great  antislavery 
agitation,  he  had  exchanged  letters  (corresponded, 
he  used  to  say)  with  John  Quincy  Adams  on  the 
subject  of  Lovejoy's  murder;  and  he  had  met 
several  Boston  men  at  the  Free  Soil  Convention  in 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  7 

Buffalo  in  1848.  "A  little  formal  perhaps,  a  little 
reserved,"  he  would  say,  "  but  excellent  men ; 
polished,  and  certainly  of  sterling  principle "  : 
which  would  make  his  boys  and  girls  laugh,  as 
they  grew  older,  and  sometimes  provoke  them  to 
highly  colored  dramatizations  of  the  formality  of 
these  Bostonians  in  meeting  their  father.  The 
years  passed  and  the  boys  went  West,  and  when 
the  war  came,  they  took  service  in  Iowa  and 
Wisconsin  regiments.  By  and  by  the  President's 
Proclamation  of  freedom  to  the  slaves  reached 
Eriecreek  while  Dick  and  Bob  happened  both  to 
be  home  011  leave.  After  they  had  allowed  their 
sire  his  rapture,  "  Well,  this  is  a  great  blow  for 
father,"  said  Bob;  "what  are  you  going  to  do 
now,  father]  Fugitive  slavery  and  all  its  charms 
blotted  out  forever,  at  one  fell  swoop.  Pretty 
rough  on  you,  is  n't  it  ?  No  more  men  and 
brothers,  no  more  soulless  oligarchy.  Dull  look 
out,  father." 

"0  no,"  insinuated  one  of  the  girls,  "there's 
Boston." 

"  Why,  yes,"  cried  Dick,  "  to  be  sure  there  is. 
The  President  has  n't  abolished  Boston.  Live  for 
Boston." 

And  the  doctor  did  live  for  an  ideal  Boston, 
thereafter,  so  far  at  least  as  concerned  a  never- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

relinquished,  never-fulfilled  purpose  of  some  day 
making  a  journey  to  Boston.  But  in  the  mean 
time  there  were  other  things ;  and  at  present, 
since  the  Proclamation  Had  given  him  a  country 
worth  living  in,  he  was  ready  to  honor  her  by 
studying  her  antiquities.  In  his  youth,  before  his 
mind  had  been  turned  so  strenuously  to  the  con 
sideration  of  slavery,  he  had  a  pretty  taste  for  the 
mystery  of  the  Mound  Builders,  and  each  of  his 
boys  now  returned  to  c?mp  with  instructions  to 
note  any  phenomena  that  would  throw  light  upon 
this  interesting  subject.  They  would  have  abun 
dant  leisure  for  research,  since  the  Proclamation, 
Dr.  Ellison  insisted,  practically  ended  the  war. 

The  Mound  Builders  were  only  a  starting-point- 
for  the  doctor.  He  advanced  from  them  to  his 
torical  times  in  due  course,  and  it  happened  that 
when  Colonel  Ellison  and  his  wife  stopped  off  at 
Eriecreck  on  their  way  East,  in  1870,  they  found 
him  deep  in  the  history  of  the  Old  French  War. 
As  yet  the  colonel  had  not  intended  to  take  the 
Canadian  route  eastward,  and  he  escaped  without* 
the  charges  which  he  must  otherwise  have  received 
to  look  up  the  points  of  interest  at  Montreal  and 
Quebec  connected  with  that  ancient  struggle.  He 
and  his  wife  carried  Kitty  with  them  to  see  Nia 
gara  (which  she  had  never  seen  because  it  was  so 


A   Chance  Acquaintance,  9 

near);  but  no  sooner  had  Dr.  Ellison  got  the 
despatch  announcing  that  they  would  take  Kitty 
on  with  them  down  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec, 
and  bring  her  home  by  way  of  Boston,  than  he  sat 
down  and  wrote  her  a  letter  of  the  most  compre 
hensive  character.  As  far  as  concerned  Canada 
his  mind  was  purely  historical ;  but  when  it  came 
to  Boston  it  was  strangely  re-abolitionized,  and 
amidst  an  ardor  for  the  antiquities  of  the  place,  his 
old  love  for  its  humanitarian  pre-eminence  blazed 
up.  He  would  have  her  visit  Faneuil  Hall  because 
of  its  Revolutionary  memories,  but  not  less  because 
Wendell  Phillips  had  there  made  his  first  anti- 
slaverv  speech.  She  was  to  see  the  collections  of 
the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  and  if  pos 
sible  certain  points  of  ancient  colonial  interest 
which  he  named  ;  but  at  any  rate  she  was  some 
how  to  catch  sight  of  the  author  of  the  "  Biglow 
Papers,"  of  Senator  Su inner,  of  Mr.  AYhittier,  of 
Dr.  Howe,  of  Colonel  Higginson,  and  of  Mr. 
Garrison.  These  people  were  all  Bostonians  to 
^the  idealizing  remoteness  of  Dr.  Ellison,  and  he 
could  not  well  conceive  of  them  asunder.  He  per 
haps  imagined  that  Kitty  was  more  likely  to  see 
them  together  than  separately  ;  and  perhaps  in 
deed  they  were  less  actual  persons,  to  his  admira 
tion,  than  so  many  figures  of  a  graucfejiistorical 
1* 


10  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

composition.  Finally,  "  I  want  you  to  remember, 
my  dear  child,"  he  wrote,  "that  in  Boston  you  are 
not  only  in  the  birthplace  of  American  liberty, 
but  the  yet  holier  scene  of  its  resurrection.  There 
everything  that  is  noble  and  grand  and  liberal  and 
enlightened  in  the  national  life  has  originated,  and 
I  cannot  doubt  that  you  will  find  the  character  of 
its  people  marked  by  every  attribute  of  a  magnani 
mous  democracy.  If  I  could  envy  you  anything, 
my  dear  girl,  I  should  envy  you  this  privilege  of 
seeing  a  city  where  man  is  valued  simply  and 
solely  for  what  he  is  in  himself,  and  where  color, 
wealth,  family,  occupation,  and  other  vulgar  and 
meretricious  distinctions  are  wholly  lost  sight  of 
in  the  consideration  of  individual  excellence." 

Kitty  got  her  uncle's  letter  the  night  before 
starting  up  the  Saguenay,  and  quite  too  late  for 
compliance  with  his  directions  concerning  Quebec  ; 
but  she  resolved  that  as  to  Boston  his  wishes 
should  be  fulfilled  to  the  utmost  limit  of  possi 
bility.  She  know  that  nice  Mr.  March  must  be 
acquainted  with  some  of  those  very  people.  Kitty 
had  her  uncle's  letter  in  her  pocket,  and  she  was 
just  going  to  take  it  out  and  read  it  again,  when 
something  else  attracted  her  notice. 

The  boat  had  been  advertised  to  leave  at  seven 
o'clock,  and  it  was  now  half  past.  A  party  of 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  11 

English  people  were  pacing  somewhat  impatiently 
up  and  down  before  Kitty,  for  it  had  been  made 
known  among  the  passengers  (by  that  subtle  pro 
cess  through  which  matters  of  public  interest 
transpire  in  such  places)  that  breakfast  would  not 
be  served  till  the  boat  started,  and  these  Eng 
lish  people  had  the  appetites  which  go  before  tho 
admirable  digestions  of  their  nation.  But  they 
had  also  the  good  temper  which  does  not  so  cer 
tainly  accompany  the  insular  good  appetite.  The 
man  in  his  dashing  Glengarry  cap  and  his  some 
what  shabby  gray  suit  took  on  one  arm  the  plain, 
jolly  woman  who  seemed  to  be  his  wife,  and  on 
the  other,  the  amiable,  handsome  young  girl  who 
looked  enough  like  him  to  be  his  sister,  and  strode 
rapidly  back  and  forth,  saying  that  they  must  get 
up  an  appetite  for  breakfast.  This  made  the 
women  laugh,  and  so  he  said  it  again,  which  made 
them  laugh  so  much  that  the  elder  lost  her  bal 
ance,  and  in  regaining  it  twisted  off  her  high  shoe- 
heel,  which  she  briskly  tossed  into  the  river.  But 
she  sat  down  after  that,  and  the  three  were  pres 
ently  intent  upon  the  Liverpool  steamer  which  was 
just  arrived  and  was  now  gliding  up  to  her  dock, 
with  her  population  of  passengers  thronging  her 
quarter-deck. 

"  She 's  from  England  !  "  said  the  husband,  ex 
pressively. 


12  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Only  fancy  !  "  answered  the  wife.  "  Give  me 
the  glass,  Jenny."  Then,  after  a  long  survey  of 
the  steamer,  she  added,  "  Fancy  her  being  from 
England!"  They  all  looked  and  said  nothing  for 
two  or  three  minutes,  when  the  wife's  mind  turned 
to  the  delay  of  their  own  boat  and  of  breakfast. 
"  This  thing,"  she  said,  with  that  air  of  uttering  a 
novelty  which  the  English  cast  about  their  com 
monplaces,  —  "  this  thing  does  n't  start  at  seven, 
you  know." 

"  No,"  replied  the  younger  woman,  "  she  waits 
for  the  Montreal  boat." 

"  Fancy  her  being  from  England ! "  said  the 
other,  whose  eyes  and  thoughts  had  both  wan 
dered  back  to  the  Liverpool  steamer. 

"  There  's  the  Montreal  boat  now,  comin'  round 
the  point,"  cried  the  husband.  "  Don't  you  see 
the  steam  1 "  He  pointed  with  his  glass,  and  then 
studied  the  white  cloud  in  the  distance.  "  No,  by 
Jove  !  it 's  a  saw-mill  on  the  shore." 

"0  Harry!"  sighed  both  the  women,  reproach 
fully. 

"  Why,  deuce  take  it,  you  know,"  he  retorted, 
"  I  did  n't  turn  it  into  a  saw-mill.  It 's  been  a  saw 
mill  all  along,  I  fancy." 

Half  an  hour  later,  when  the  Montreal  boat 
came  in  sight,  the  women  would  have  her  a  saw- 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  13 

mill  till  she  stood  in  full  view  in  mid-channel. 
Their  own  vessel  paddled  out  into  the  stream  as 
she  drew  near,  and  the  two  bumped  and  rubbed 
together  till  a  gangway  plank  could  be  passed 
from  one  to  the  other.  A  very  well  dressed  young 
man  stood  ready  to  get  upon  the  Saguenay  boat, 
with  a  porter  beside  him  bearing  his  substantial 
valise.  No  one  else  apparently  was  coming  aboard. 

The  English  people  looked  upon  him  for  an 
instant  with  wrathful  eyes,  as  they  hung  over  the 
rail  of  the  promenade.  "  Upon  my  word,"  said 
the  elder  of  the  women,  "  have  we  been  waitin'  all 
this  time  for  one  man  1 " 

"  Hush,  Edith,"  answered  the  younger,  "  it 's 
an  Englishman."  And  they  all  three  mutely  rec 
ognized  the  right  of  the  Englishman  to  stop,  not 
only  the  boat,  but  the  whole  solar  system,  if  his 
ticket  entitled  him  to  a  passage  on  any  particular 
planet,  while  Mr.  Miles  Arbuton  of  Boston,  Mas 
sachusetts,  passed  at  his  ease  from  one  vessel  to 
the  other.  He  had  often  been  mistaken  for  an 
Englishman,  and  the  error  of  those  spectators,  if 
he  had  known  it,  would  not  have  surprised  him. 
Perhaps  it  might  have  softened  his  judgment  of 
them  as  he  sat  facing  them  at  breakfast ;  but  he 
did  not  know  it,  and  he  thought  them  three  very 
common  English  people  with  something  profes- 


14  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

sional,  as  of  public  singing  or  acting,  about  them. 
The  young  girl  wore,  instead  of  a  travelling-suit, 
a  vivid  light  blue  dress ;  and  over  .her  sky-blue 
eyes  and  fresh  cheeks  a  glory  of  corn-colored  hair 
lay  in  great  braids  and  masses.  It  was  magnifi 
cent,  but  it  wanted  distance  ;  so  near,  it  was  al 
most  harsh.  Mr.  Arbuton's  eyes  fell  from  the 
face  to  the  vivid  blue  dress,  which  was  not  quite 
fresh  and  not  quite  new,  and  a  glimmer  of  cold 
dismissal  came  into  them,  as  he  gave  himself  en 
tirely  to  the  slender  merits  of  the  steamboat  break 
fast. 

He  was  himself,  meantime,  an  object  of  interest 
to  a  young  lady  who  sat  next  to  the  English 
party,  and  who  glanced  at  him  from  time  to  time,  out 
of  tender  gray  eyes,  with  a  furtive  play  of  feeling 
upon  a  sensitive  face.  To  her  he  was  that  divine 
possibility  which  every  young  man  is  to  every 
young  maiden  ;  and,  besides,  he  was  invested  with 
a  halo  of  romance  as  the  gentleman  with  the 
blond  mustache,  whom  she  had  seen  at  Niagara 
the  week  before,  on  the  Goat  Island  Bridge.  To 
the  pretty  matron  at  her  side,  he  was  exceedingly 
handsome,  as  a  young  man  may  frankly  be  to  a 
young  matron,  but  not  otherwise  comparable  to 
her  husband,  the  full-personed  good-humored 
looking  gentleman  who  had  just  added  sausage  to 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  15 

the  ham  and  eggs  on  his  plate.  He  was  hand 
some,  too,  but  his  full  beard  was  reddish,  whereas 
Mr.  Arbuton's  mustache  was  flaxen ;  and  his 
dress  was  not  worn  with  that  scrupulosity  with 
which  the  Bostonian  bore  his  clothes  ;  there  was 
a  touch  of  slovenliness  in  him  that  scarcely  con 
sorted  with  the  alert,  ex-military  air  of  some  of  his 
movements.  "  Good-looking  young  John  Bull,"  he 
thought  concerning  Mr.  Arbuton,  and  then 
thought  no  more  about  him,  being  no  more  self- 
judged  before  the  supposed  Englishman  than  ho 
would  have  been  before  so  much  Frenchman  or 
Spaniard.  Mr.  Arbuton,  on  the  other  hand,  if  he 
had  met  an  Englishman  so  well  dressed  as  him 
self,  must  at  once  have  arraigned  himself,  and  had 
himself  tacitly  tried  for  his  personal  and  national 
difference.  He  looked  in  his  turn  at  these  people; 
and  thought  he  should  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them,  in  spite  of  the  long-lashed  gray  eyes. 

It  was  not  that  they  had  made  the  faintest  ad 
vance  towards  acquaintance,  or  that  the  choice  of 
knowing  them  or  not  was  with  Mr.  Arbuton  ;  but 
he  had  the  habit  of  thus  protecting  himself  from 
the  chances  of  life,  and  a  conscience  against  en 
couraging  people  whom  he  might  have  to  drop  for 
ivasims  of  society.  This  was  sometimes  a  sacri 
fice,  for  he  was  not  past  the  age  when  people  take 


16  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

a  lively  interest  in  most  other  human  beings. 
When  breakfast  was  over,  and  he  had  made  the 
tour  of  the  boat,  and  seen  all  his  fellow-passengers, 
he  perceived  that  he  could  have  little  in  common 
with  any  of  them,  and  that  probably  the  journey 
would  require  the  full  exercise  of  that  tolerant 
spirit  in  which  he  had  undertaken  a  branch  of 
summer  travel  in  his  native  land. 

The  rush  of  air  against  the  steamer  was  very 
raw  and  chill,  and  the  forward  promenade  was  left 
almost  entirely  to  the  English  professional  people, 
who  walked  rapidly  up  and  down,  with  jokes  and 
laughter  of  their  kind,  while  the  wind  blew  the 
girl's  hair  in  loose  gold  about  her  fresh  face,  and 
twisted  her  blue  drapery  tight  about  her  comely 
shape.  When  they  got  out  of  breath  they  sat 
down  beside  a  large  American  lady,  with  a  great 
deal  of  gold  filling  in  her  front  teeth,  and  pres- 
sently  rose  again  and  ran  races  to  and  from  the 
bow.  Mr.  Arbuton  turned  away  in  displeasure. 
At  the  stern  he  found  a,  much  larger  company, 
most  of  whom  had  furnished  themselves  with 
novels  and  magazines  from  the  stock  on  board 
and  were  drowsing  over  them.  One  gentleman 
was  reading  aloud  to  three  ladies  the  newspaper 
account  of  a  dreadful  shipwreck  ;  other  laches  and 
gentlemen  were  coming  and  going  forever  from 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  17 

their  state-rooms,  as  the  wont  of  some  is  ;  others 
yet  sat  with  closed  eyes,  as  if  having  come  to  see 
the  Saguenay  they  were  resolved  to  see  nothing' 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  on  the  way  thither,  but 
would  keep  their  vision  sacred  to  the  wonders  of 
the  former  river. 

Yet  the  St.  Lawrence  was  worthy  to  be  seen, 
as  even  Mr.  Arbuton  owned,  whose  way  was  to  slight 
American  scenery,  in  distinction  from  his  country 
men  who  boast  it  the  finest  in  the  world.  As  you 
leave  Quebec,  with  its  mural-crowned  and  castled 
rock,  and  drop  down  the  stately  river,  presently 
the  snowy  fall  of  Montmorenci,  far  back  in  its 
purple  hollow,  leaps  perpetual  avalanche  into  the 
abyss,  and  then  you  are  abreast  of  the  beautiful 
Isle  of  Orleans,  whose  low  shores,  with  their  ex 
panses  of  farmland,  and  their  groves  of  pine  and 
oak,  are  still  as  lovely  as  when  the  wild  grapo 
festooned  the  primitive  forests  and  won  from  the 
easy  rapture  of  old  Cartier  the  name  of  Isle  of  Bac 
chus.  For  two  hours  farther  down  the  river  either 
shore  is  bright  and  populous  with  the  continuous 
villages  of  the  habitans,  each  clustering  about  its 
slim-spired  church,  in  its  shallow  vale  by  the 
water's  edge,  or  lifted  in  more  eminent  picturesque- 
ness  upon  some  gentle  height.  The  banks,  no 
where  lofty  or  abrupt,  are  such  as  in  a  southern 

B 


18  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

land  some  majestic  river  might  flow  between,  wide, 
slumbrous,  open  to  all  the  heaven  and  the  long 
day  till  the  very  set  of  sun.  But  no  starry  palm 
glasses  its  crest  in  the  clear  cold  green  from  these 
low  brinks ;  the  pale  birch,  slender  and  delicately 
fair,  mirrors  here  the  wintry  whiteness  of  its 
boughs  ;  and  this  is  the  sad  great  river  of  the 
awful  North. 

Gradually,  as  the  day  wore  on,  the  hills  which 
had  shrunk  almost  out  of  sight  on  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  were  dark  purple  in  the  distance, 
drew  near  the  shore,  and  at  one  point  on  the 
northern  side  rose  almost  from  the  water's  edge. 
The  river  expanded  into  a  lake  before  them,  and 
in  their  lap  some  cottages,  and  half-way  up  the 
hillside,  among  the  stunted  pines,  a  much-gal- 
leried  hotel,  proclaimed  a  resort  of  fashion  in  the 
heart  of  what  seemed  otherwise  a  wilderness.  In 
dian  huts  sheathed  in  birch-bark  nestled  at  the 
foot  of  the  rocks,  which  were  rich  in  orange  and 
scarlet  stains ;  out  of  the  tops  of  the  huts  curled 
the  blue  smoke,  and  at  the  door  of  one  stood  a 
squaw  in  a  flame-red  petticoat ;  others  in  bright 
shawls  squatted  about  on  the  rocks,  each  with  a 
circle  of  dogs  and  papooses.  But  all  this  warmth 
of  color  only  served,  like  a  winter  sunset,  to 
heighten  the  chilly  and  desolate  sentiment  of  the 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  19 

scene.  The  light  dresses  of  the  ladies  on  the 
veranda  struck  cold  upon  the  eye  ;  in  the  faces  of 
the  sojourners  who  lounged  idly  to  the  steamer's 
landing-place,  the  passenger  could  fancy  a  sad 
resolution  to  repress  their  tears  when  the  boat 
should  go  away  and  leave  them.  She  put  off  two 
or  three  old  peasant-women  who  were  greeted  by 
other  such  on  the  pier,  as  if  returned  from  a  long 
journey  ;  and  then  the  crew  discharged  the  vessel 
of  a  prodigious  freight  of  onions  which  formed 
the  sole  luggage  these  old  women  had  brought 
from  Quebec.  Bale  after  bale  of  the  pungent 
bulbs  were  borne  ashore  in  the  careful  arms  of 
the  deck-hands,  and  counted  by  the  owners ;  at 
last  order  was  given  to  draw  in  the  plank,  when  a 
passionate  cry  burst  from  one  of  the  old  women, 
who  extended  both  hands  with  an  imploring  ges 
ture  towards  the  boat.  A  bale  of  onions  had 
been  left  aboard ;  a  deck-hand  seized  it  and  ran 
quickly  ashore  with  it,  and  then  back  again,  fol 
lowed  by  the  benedictions  of  the  tranquillized 
and  comforted  beldam.  The  gay  sojourners  at 
Murray  Bay  controlled  their  grief,  and  as  Mr.  Ar- 
buton  turned  from  them,  the  boat,  pushing  out, 
left  them  to  their  fashionable  desolation.  She 
struck  across  to  the  southern  shore,  to  land  pas 
sengers  for  Cacouua,  a  watering-place  greater  than 


20  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

Murray  Bay.  The  tide,  which  rises  fifteen  feet  at 
Quebec,  is  the  impulse,  not  the  savor  of  the  sea ; 
but  at  Cacouna  the  water  is  salt,  and  the  sea 
bathing  lacks  nothing  but  the  surf;  and  hither 
resort  in  great  numbers  the  Canadians  who  fly 
their  cities  during  the  fierce,  brief  fever  of  the 
northern  summer.  The  watering-place  village  and 
hotel  is  not  in  sight  from  the  landing,  but,  as  at 
Murray  Bay,  the  sojourners  thronged  the  pier,  as 
if  the  arrival  of  the  steamboat  were  the  great 
event  of  their  day.  That  afternoon  they  were  in 
unusual  force,  having  come  on  foot  and  by  omni 
bus  and  calash  ;  and  presently  there  passed  down 
through  their  ranks  a.  strange  procession  with  a 
band  of  music  leading  the  way  to  the  steamer. 

"  It 's  an  Indian  wedding,"  Mr.  Arbuton  heard 
one  of  the  boat's  officers  saying  to  the  gentleman 
with  the  ex-military  air,  who  stood  next  him  beside 
the  rail ;  and  now,  the  band  having  drawn  aside, 
he  saw  the  bride  and  groom,  —  the  latter  a  com 
mon,  stolid-faced  savage,  and  the  former  pretty  and 
almost  white,  with  a  certain  modesty  and  sweetness 
of  mien.  Before  them  wrent  a  young  American, 
with  a  jaunty  Scotch  cap  and  a  visage  of  supernat 
ural  gravity,  as  the  master  of  ceremonies  which 
he  had  probably  planned  ;  arm  in  arm  with  him 
walked  a  portly  chieftain  in  black  broadcloth,  pre- 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  21 

posterotisly  adorned  on  the  breast  with  broad  flat 
disks  of  silver  in  two  rows.  Behind  the  bridal 
couple  came  the  whole  village  in  pairs,  men  and 
women,  and  children  of  all  ages,  even  to  brown 
babies  in  arms,  gay  in  dress  and  indescribably  seri 
ous  in  demeanor.  They  were  mated  in  some  sort 
according  to  years  and  size  ;  and  the  last  couple 
were  young  fellows  paired  in  an  equal  tipsiness. 
These  reeled  and  wavered  along  the  pier ;  and 
when  the  other  wedding  guests  crowned  the  day's 
festivity  by  going  aboard  the  steamer,  they  followed 
dizzily  down  the  gangway.  Midway  they  lurched 
heavily  ;  the  spectators  gave  a  cry  ;  but  they  had 
happily  lurched  in  opposite  directions  ;  their  grip 
upon  each  other's  arms  held,  and  a  forward  stagger 
launched  them  victoriously  aboard  in  a  heap.  They 
had  scarcely  disappeared  from  sight,  when,  having 
as  it  were  instantly  satisfied  their  curiosity  con 
cerning  the  boat,  the  other  guests  began  to  go 
ashore  in  due  order.  Mr.  Arbuton  waited  in  a 
slight  anxiety  to  see  whether  the  tipsy  couple 
could  repeat  their  manoeuvre  successfully  on  an 
upward  incline  ;  and  they  had  just  appeared  on 
the  gangway,  when  he  felt  a  hand  passed  carelessly 
and  as  if  unconsciously  through  his  arm,  and  at  the 
same  moment  a  voice  said,  "  Those  are  a  pair  of  dis 
appointed  lovers,  I  suppose." 


22  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

He  looked  round  and  perceived  the  young  lady 
of  the  party  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  resting  one  hand  on  the  rail, 
and  sustaining  herself  with  the  other  passed 
through  his  arm,  while  she  was  altogether  intent 
upon  the  scene  below.  The  ex-military  gentleman, 
the  head  of  the  party,  and  apparently  her  kinsman, 
had  stepped  aside  without  her  knowing,  and  she  had 
unwittingly  taken  Mr.  Arbuton's  arm.  So  much 
was  clear  to  him,  but  what  he  was  to  do  was  not 
so  plain.  It  did  not  seem  quite  his  place  to  tell 
her  of  her  mistake,  and  yet  it  seemed  a  piece  of 
unfairness  not  to  do  so.  To  leave  the  matter  alone, 
however,  was  the  simplest,  safest,  and  pleasantest ; 
for  the  pressure  of  the  pretty  figure  lightly  thrown 
upon  his  arm  had  something  agreeably  confiding 
and  appealing  in  it.  So  he  waited  till  the  young 
lady,  turning  to  him  for  some  response,  discovered 
her  error,  and  disengaged  herself  with  a  face  of 
mingled  horror  and  amusement.  Even  then  he 
had  no  inspiration.  To  speak  of  the  mistake  in 
tones  of  compliment  would  have  been  grossly  out 
of  place ;  an  explanation  was  needless  ;  and  to  her 
murmured  excuses,  he  could  only  bow  silently. 
She  flitted  into  the  cabin,  and  he  walked  away,  leav 
ing  the  Indians  to  stagger  ashore  as  they  mi<jht. 
His  arm  seemed  still  to  sustain  that  elastic  weight, 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  23 

and  a  voice  haunted  his  ear  with  the  words,  "  A 
]>:tir  of  disappointed  lovers,  I  suppose"  ;  and  still 
more  awkward  and  stupid  he  felt  hi^own  part  in 
the  affair  to  be ;  though  at  the  same  time  he  was 
not  without  some  obscure  resentment  of  the  young 
girl's  mistake  as  an  intrusion  upon  him. 

It  was  late  twilight  when  the  boat  reached  Ta- 
doussac,  and  ran  into  a  sheltered  cove  under  the 
shadow  of  uplands  on  which  a  quaint  village 
perched  and  dispersed  itself  on  a  country  road  in 
summer  cottages  ;  above  these  in  turn  rose  loftier 
heights  of  barren  sand  or  rock,  with  here  and 
there  a  rank  of  sickly  pines  dying  along  their  ster 
ility.  It  had  been  harsh  and  cold  all  day  when 
the  boat  moved,  for  it  was  running  full  in  the 
face  of  the  northeast ;  the  river  had  widened  al 
most  to  a  sea,  growing  more  and  more  desolate, 
with  a  few  lonely  islands  breaking  its  expanse,  and 
the  shores  sinking  lower  and  lower  till,  near  Ta- 
doussac,  they  rose  a  little  in  flat -topped  bluffs 
thickly  overgrown  with  stunted  evergreens.  Here, 
into  the  vast  low-walled  breadth  of  the  St.  Law 
rence,  a  dark  stream,  narrowly  bordered  by  round 
ed  heights  of  rock,  steals  down  from  the  north  out 
of  regions  of  gloomy  and  ever-during  solitude. 
This  is  the  Saguenay ;  and  in  the  cold  evening 
light  under  which  the  traveller  approaches  its 


24  A  Chance  Acquaintance, 

mouth,  no  landscape  could  look  more  forlorn  than 
that  of  Tadoussac,  where  early  in  the  sixteenth 
century  the  French  traders  fixed  their  first  post, 
and  where  still  the  oldest  church  north  of  Florida 
is  standing. 

The  steamer  lies  here  five  hours,  and  supper 
was  no  sooner  over  than  the  passengers  went 
ashore  in  the  gathering  dusk.  Mr.  Arbuton,  guard 
ing  his  distance  as  usual,  went  too,  with  a  feeling 
of  surprise  at  his  own  concession  to  the  popular 
impulse.  He  was  not  without  a  desire  to  see  the 
old  church,  wondering  in  a  half-compassionate  way 
what  such  a  bit  of  Amexican  antiquity  would  look 
like  ;  and  he'had  perceived  since  the  little  embar 
rassment  at  Cacoiiiia/tliat  he  was  a  discomfort  to 
the  young  lady  involved  by  it.  He  had  caught  no 
glimpse  of  her  till  supper,  and  then  she  had 
briefly  supped  with  an  air  of  such  studied  uncon 
sciousness  of  his  presence  that  it  was  plain  she 
was  thinking  of  her  mistake  every  moment. 
"  Well,  I  '11  leave  her^the  freedom  of  the  boat 
while  wp  stay,"  Wioughty  Mr.  Arbuton  as  he  went 
ashore.  lie  hacf  not  the  least  notion  whither  the 
road  led,  but  like  the  rest  he  followed  it  up 
through  the  village,  and  on  among  the  cottages 
which  seemed  for  the  most  part  empty,  and  so 
down  a  gloomy  ravine,  in  the  bottom  of  which, 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  25 

far  beneath  the  tremulous  rustic  bridge,  he  heard 
the  mysterious  crash  aud  fall  of  an  unseen  torrent. 
Before  him  towered  the  shadowy  hills  up  into  the 
starless  night ;  he  thrilled  with  a  sense  of  the 
loneliness  and  remoteness,  and  he  had  a  formless 
wish  that  some  one  qualified  by  the  proper  associ 
ations  and  traditions  were  there  to  share  the  satis 
faction  he  felt  in  the  whole  effect.  At  the  same 
instant  he  was  once  more  aware  of  that  delicate 
pressure,  that  weight  so  lightly,  sweetly  borne 
upon  his  arm.  It  startled  him,  and  again  lie  fol 
lowed  the  road,  which  with  a  sudden  turn  brought 
him  in  sight  of  a  hotel  and  in  sound  of  a  bowling- 
alley,  and  therein  young  ladies'  cackle  and  laugh 
ter,  and  he  wondered  a  little  scornfully  who  could 
be  spending  the  summer  there.  A  bay  of  the 
river  loftily  shut  in  by  rugged  hills  lay  before 
him,  and  on  the  shore,  just  above  high-tide,  stood 
what  a  wandering  shadow  told  him  was  the  an 
cient  church  of  Tadoussac.  The  windows  were 
faintly  tinged  with  red  as  from  a  single  taper  burn 
ing  within,  and  but  that  the  elements  were  a  little 
too  bare  and  simple  for  one  so  used  to  the  rich 
effects  of  the  Old  World,  Mr.  Arbuton  might  have 
been  touched  by  the  vigil  which  this  poor  chapel 
was  still  keeping  after  three  hundred  years  in  the 
heart  of  that  gloomy  place.  "While  he  stood  at 
2 


26  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

least  tolerating  its  appeal,  he  heard  voices  of  peo 
ple  talking  in  the  obscurity  near  the  church  door, 
which  they  seemed  to  have  been  vainly  trying  for 
entrance. 

"  Pity  we  can't  see  the  inside,  is  n't  it]" 
"  Yes ;  but  I  am  so  glad  to  see  any  of  it.     Just 
think  of  its  having  been  built  in  the  seventeenth 
century  ! " 

"  Uncle  Jack  would  enjoy  it,  would  n't  he]" 
"  0  yes,  poor  Uncle  Jack  !  I  feel  somehow  as 
if  I  were  cheating  him  out  of  it.  He  ought  to  be 
here  in  my  place.  But  I  do  like  it ;  and,  Dick,  I 
don't  know  what  I  can  ever  say  or  do  to  you  and 
Fanny  for  bringing  me." 

"  Well,  Kitty,  postpone  the  subject  till  you  can 
think  of  the  right  thing.  We  're  in  no  hurry." 

Mr.  Arbuton  heard  a  shaking  of  the  door,  as  of 
a,  final  attempt  upon  it  before  retreat,  and  then 
the  voices  faded  into  inarticulate  sounds  in  the 
darkness.  They  were  the  voices,  he  easily  recog 
nized,  of  the  young  lady  who  had  taken  his  arm, 
and  of  that  kinsman  of  hers,  as  she  seemed  to  be. 
He  blamed  himself  for  having  not  only  overheard 
them,  but  for  desiring  to  hear  more  of  their  talk, 
and  he  resolved  to  follow  them  back  to  the  boat 
at  a  discreet  distance.  But  they  loitered  so  at 
every  point,  or  he  unwittingly  made  such  haste, 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  27 

that  ho  had  overtaken  them  as  they  entered  the 
lane  between  the  outlying  cottages,  and  he  could 
not  help  being  privy  to  their  talk  again. 

"  Well,  it  may  be  old,  Kitty,  but  I  don't  think 
it 's  lively." 

"  It  is  n't  exactly  a  whirl  of  excitement,  I  must 
confess." 

"  It 's  the  deadliest  place  I  ever  saw.  Is  that  a 
swing  in  front  of  that  cottage?  No,  it's  a  gibbet. 
Why,  they  've  all  got  'em  !  I  suppose  they  're  for 
the  summer  tenants  at  the  close  of  the  season. 
What  a  rush  there  would  be  for  them  if  the  boat 
should  happen  to  go  off  and  leave  her  passengers !  " 

Mr.  Arbuton  thought  this  rather  a  coarse  kind 
of  drolling,  and  strengthened  himself  anew  in  his 
resolution  to  avoid  those  people. 

They  now  came  in  sight  of  the  steamer,  where 
in  the  cove  she  lay  illumined  with  all  her  lamps, 
and  through  every  window  and  door  and  crevice 
was  bursting  with  the  ruddy  light.  Her  brillian 
cy  contrasted  vividly  with  the  obscurity  and  lone 
liness  of  the  shore  where  a  few  lights  glimmered 
in"  the  village  houses,  and  under  the  porch  of  the 
village  store  some  desolate  idlers  —  habitans  and 
half-breeds  —  had  clubbed  their  miserable  leisure. 
Beyond  the  steamer  yawned  the  wide  vacancy  of 
the  greater  river,  and  out  of  this  gloomed  the 
course  of  the  Saguenay. 


28  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  0,  I  bate  to  go  on  board  ! "  said  the  young 
lady.  "  Do  you  think  he  's  got  back  yet  1  It 's 
perfect  misery  to  meet  him." 

"  Never  mind,  Kitty.  He  probably  thinks  you 
didn't  mean  anything  by  it.  /don't  believe  you 
would  have  taken  his  arm  if  you  had  n't  supposed 
it  was  mine,  any  way." 

She  made  no  answer  to  this,  as  if  too  much 
overcome  by  the  true  state  of  the  case  to  be  trou 
bled  by  its  perversion.  Mr.  Arbuton,  following 
them  on  board,  felt  himself  in  the  unpleasant 
character  of  persecutor^  some  one  to  be  shunned 
and  escaped  by  every  manoeuvre  possible  to  self- 
respect.  He  was  to  be  the  means,  it  appeared,  of 
spoiling  the  enjoyment  of  the  voyage  for  one  who, 
he  inferredjjTmd  not  often  the  opportunity  of  sr.di 
enjoyment.  He  had  a  willingness  that  she  should 
think  well  and  not  ill  of  him  ;  and  then  at  the 
bottom  of  all  was  a  sentiment  of  superiority, 
which,  if  he  had  given  it  shape,  would  have  been 
noblesse  oblige.  Some  action  was  due  to  himself 
as  a  gentleman. 

The  young  lady  went  to  seek  the  matron  of  the 
party,  and  left  her  companion  at  the  door  of  the 
saloon,  wistfully  fingering  a  cigar  in  one  hand,  and 
feeling  for  a  match  with  the  other.  Presently  he 
gave  himself  a  clap  on  the  waistcoat  which  he  had 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  29 

found  empty,  and  was  turning  away,  when  Mr.  Ar- 
buton  said,  offering  his  own  lighted  cigar,  "  May  I 
be  of  use  to  you.  1 " 

The  other  took  it  with  a  hearty,  "  0  yes,  thank 
you ! "  and,  with  many  inarticulate  murmurs  of 
satisfaction,  lighted  his  cigar,  and  returned  Mr. 
Arbuton's  with  a  brisk,  half-military  bow. 

Mr.  Arbuton  looked  at  him  narrowly  a  moment. 
"  I  'm  afraid,"  he  said  abruptly,  "  that  I  've  most 
unluckily  been  the  cause  of  annoyance  to  one  of 
the  ladies  of  your  party.  It  is  n't  a  thing  to  apolo 
gize  for,  and  I  hardly  know  how  to  say  that  I 
hope,  if  she  's  not  already  forgotten  the  matter, 
she  '11  do  so."  Saying  this,  Mr.  Arbuton,  by  an 
impulse  which  he  would  have  been  at  a  loss  to  ex 
plain,  offered  his  card. 

His  action  had  the  effect  of  frankness,  and  the 
other  took  it  for  cordiality.  He  drew  near  a  lamp, 
and  looked  at  the  name  and  street  address  on  the 
card,  and  then  said,  "  Ah,  of  Boston !  My  name 
is  Ellison ;  I  'm  of  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin."  And 
he  laughed  a  free,  trustful  laugh  of  good  compan 
ionship.  "  Why  yes,  my  cousin 's  been  torment 
ing  herself  about  her  mistake  the  whole  afternoon  ; 
but  of  course  it 's  all  right,  you  know.  Bless  my 
heart !  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 
Have  you  been  ashore  1  There 's  a  good  deal  of 


30  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

repose  about  Tadoussac,  now  ;  but  it  must  be  a  live 
ly  place  in  winter !  Such  a  cheerful  lookout  from 
these  cottages,  or  that  hotel  over  yonder  !  We 
went  over  to  see  if  we  could  get  into  the  little  old 
church ;  the  purser  told  me  there  are  some  lead 
tablets  there,  left  by  Jacques  Cartier's  men,  you 
know,  and  dug  up  in  the  neighborhood.  I  don't 
think  it's  likely,  and  I'm  bearing  up  very  well 
under  the  disappointment  of  not  getting  in.  1  'vc 
done  my  duty  by  the  antiquities  of  the  place ;  and 
now  I  don't  care  how  soon  we  are  off." 

Colonel  Ellison  was  talking  in  the  kindness  of 
his  heart  to  change  the  subject  which  the  younger 
'gentleman  had  introduced,  in  the  belief,  which 
would  scarcely  have  pleased  the  other,  that  he  was 
much  embarrassed.  His  good-nature  went  still 
further ;  and  when  his  cousin  returned  presently, 
with  Mrs.  Ellison,  he  presented  Mr.  Arbuton  to 
the  ladies,  and  then  thoughtfully  made  Mrs.  Elli 
son  walk  up  and  down  the  deck  with  him  for  the 
exercise  she  would  not  take  ashore,  that  the 
others  might  be  left  to  deal  with  their  vexation 
alone. 

"  I  am  very  sorry,  Miss  Ellison,"  said  Mr.  Arbu 
ton,  "  to  have  been  the  means  of  a  mistake  to  you 
to-day." 

"And  I  was  dreadfully  ashamed  to  make  you 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  31 

the  victim  of  my  blunder,"  answered  Miss  Ellison 
penitently  ;  and  a  little  silence  ensued.  Then  as 
if  she  had  suddenly  been  able  to  alienate  the  case, 
and  see  it  apart  from  herself  in  its  unmanageable 
absurdity,  she  broke  into  a  confiding  laugh,  very 
like  her  cousin's,  and  said,  "  Why,  it 's  one  of  the 
most  hopeless  things  I  ever  heard  of.  I  don't  see 
what  in  the  world  can  be  done  about  it." 

"  It  is  rather  a  difficult  matter,  and  I  'm  not  pre 
pared  to  say  myself.  Before  I  make  up  my  mind 
I  should  like  it  to  happen  again." 

Mr.  Arbuton  had  no  sooner  made  this  speech, 
which  he  thought  neat,  than  he  was  vexed  with 
himself  for  having  made  it,  since  nothing  was  fur 
ther  from  his  purpose  than  a  flirtation.  But  the 
dark,  vicinity,  the  young  girl's  prettiness,  the  ap 
parent  freshness  and  reliance  on  his  sympathy 
from  which  her  frankness  came,  were  too  much  : 
he  tried  to  congeal  again,  and  ended  in  some  fee 
bleness  about  the  scenery,  which  was  indeed  very 
lonely  and  wild,  after  the  boat  started  up  the 
Saguenay,  leaving  the  few  lights  of  Tadoussac  to 
blink  and  fail  behind  her.  He  had  an  absurd  sense 
of  being  alone  in  the  world  there  with  the  young 
lady ;  and  he  suffered  himself  to  enjoy  the  situa 
tion,  which  was  as  perfectly  safe  as  anything  could 
be.  He  and  Miss  Ellison  had  both  come  on  from 


32  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

Niagara,  it  seemed,  and  they  talked  of  that  place, 
she  consciously  withholding  the  fact  that  she  had 
noticed  Mr.  Arbuton  there ;  they  had  both  come 
down  the  Rapids  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  they 
had  both  stopped  a  day  in  Montreal.  These  com 
mon  experiences  gave  them  a  surprising  interest 
for  each  other,  which  was  enhanced  by  the  discov 
ery  that  their  experiences  differed  thereafter,  and 
that  whereas  she  had  passed  three  days  at  Quebec, 
he,  as  we  know,  had  come  on  directly  from  Mon 
treal. 

"  Did  you  enjoy  Quebec  very  much,  Miss  Elli 
son  r 

"  0  yes,  indeed  !  It 's  a  beautiful  old  town,  with 
everything  in  it  that  I  had  always  read  about  and 
never  expected  to  see.  You  know  it 's  a  walled 
city." 

"  Yes.  But  I  confess  I  had  forgotten  it  till  this 
morning.  Did  you  find  it  all  that  you  expected  a 
walled  city  to  be  1 " 

"  More,  if  possible.  There  were  some  Boston  peo 
ple  with  us  there,  and  they  said  it  was  exactly  like 
Europe.  They  fairly  sighed  over  it,  and  it  seemed 
to  remind  them  of  pretty  nearly  everything  they 
had  seen  abroad.  They  were  just  married." 

"  Did  that  make  Quebec  look  like  Europe  1 " 

"  No,  but  I  suppose  it  made  them  willing  to  see  it 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  33 

in  the  pleasantest  light.  Mrs.  March  —  that  was 
their  name  —  would  n't  allow  me  to  say  that  /  en 
joyed  Quebec,  because  if  I  had  n't  seen  Europe,  I 
could  rit  properly  enjoy  it.  'You  may  think  you 
enjoy  it,'  she  was  always  saying,  '  but  that 's  mere 
ly  fancy.'  Still  I  cling  to  my  delusion.  But  I 
don't  know  whether  I  cared  more  for  Quebec,  or 
the  beautiful  little  villages  in  the  country  all  about 
it.  The  whole  landscape  looks  just  like  a  dream 
of '  Evangeline.' " 

"  Indeed  !  I  must  certainly  stop  at  Quebec.  I 
should  like  to  see  an  American  landscape  that  put 
one  in  mind  of  anything.  What  can  your  imagina 
tion  do  for  the  present  scenery  1 " 

"  I  don't  think  it  needs  any  help  from  me,"  re 
plied  the  young  girl,  as  if  the  tone  of  her  compan 
ion  had  patronized  and  piqued  her.  She  turned  as 
she  spoke  and  looked  up  the  sad,  lonely  river.  The 
moon  was  making  its  veiled  face  seen  through  the 
gray  heaven,  and  touching  the  black  stream  with 
hints  of  melancholy  light.  On  either  hand  the  un 
inhabitable  shore  rose  in  desolate  grandeur,  friend 
less  heights  of  rock  with  a  thin  covering  of  pines 
seen  in  dim  outline  along  their  tops  and  deepening 
into  the  solid  dark  of  hollows  and  ravines  upon 
their  sides.  The  cry  of  some  wild  bird  struck 
through  the  silence  of  which  the  noise  of  the  steam- 
2*  c 


34  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

er  had  grown  to  be  a  part,  and  echoed  away  to 
nothing.  Then  from  the  saloon  there  came  on  a 
sudden  the  notes  of  a  song  ;  and  Miss  Ellison  led 
the  way  within,  where  most  of  the  other  passen 
gers  were  grouped  about  the  piano.  The  English 
girl  with  the  corn-colored  hair  sat,  in  ravishing 
picture,  at  the  instrument,  and  the  commonish  man 
and  his  very  plain  wife  were  singing  with  heavenly 
sweetness  together. 

"  Is  n't  it  beautiful  !  "  said  Miss  Ellison.  "  How 
nice  it  must  be  to  be  able  to  do  such  things  ! " 

"  Yes  ?  do  you  think  so  1  It 's  rather  public," 
answered  her  companion. 

When  the  English  people  had  ended,  a  grave, 
elderly  Canadian  gentleman  sat  down  to  give  what 
he  believed  a  comic  song,  and  sent  everybody  dis 
consolate  to  bed. 

"  Well,  Kitty  ? "  cried  Mrs.  Ellison,  shutting  her 
self  inside  the  young  lady's  state-room  a  moment. 

"Well,  Fanny]" 

"  Is  n't  he  handsome  ?  " 

"  He  is,  indeed." 

"  Is  he  nice  1 " 

"  I  don't  know." 

"Sweet  I" 

"  /ce-cream,"  said  Kitty,  and  placidly  let  herself 
be  kissed  an  enthusiastic  good-night.  Before  Mrs. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  35 

Ellison  slept  she  wished  to  ask  her  husband  one 
question. 

"  What  is  it  1  " 

"  Should  you  want*Kitty  to  marry  a  Bostonian  1 
They  say  Bostonians  are  so  cold." 

"  What  Bostonian  has  been  asking  Kitty  to  mar 
ry  him  1  " 

"  0,  how  spiteful  you  are  !  I  did  n't  say  any 
had.  But  if  there  should  1 " 

"  Then  it  '11  be  time  to  think  about  it.  You  've 
married  Kitty  right  and  left  to  everybody  who  's 
looked  at  her  since  we  left  Niagara,  and  I  've  wor 
ried  myself  to  death  investigating  the  character  of 
her  husbands.  Now  I  'm  not  going  to  do  it  any 
longer,  —  till  she  has  an  offer." 

"  Very  well.  You,  can  depreciate  vour  own 
cousin,  if  you  like.  But  I  know  what  /  shall  do. 
I  shall  let  her  wear  all  my  best  things.  How  for 
tunate  it  is,  Richard,  that  we  're  exactly  of  a  size  ! 
0,  I  am  so  glad  we  brought  Kitty  along  !  If  she 
should  marry  and  settle  down  in  Boston  —  no,  I 
hope  she  could  get  her  husband  to  live  in  New 
York  —  " 

"Go  on,  go  on,  my  dear  !  "  cried  Colonel  Elli 
son,  with  a  groan  of  despair.  "  Kitty  has  talked 
twenty-five  minutes  with  this  young  man  about 
the  hotels  and  steamboats,  and  of  course  he  '11  be 


36  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

round  to-morrow  morning  asking  my  consent  to 
marry  her  as  soon  as  we  can  get  to  a  justice  of  the 
peace.  My  hair  is  gradually  turning  gray,  and  I 
shall  be  bald  before  my  time ;  but  I  don't  mind 
that  if  you  find  any  pleasure  in  these  little  halluci 
nations  of  yours.  Go  on  !  " 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  37 


II. 

MRS.    ELLISON'S   LITTLE  MANOEUVRE. 

I'HE  next  morning  our  tourists  found 
themselves  at  rest  in  Ha-Ha  Bay,  at  the 
head  of  navigation  for  the  larger  steam 
ers.  The  long  line  of  sullen  hills  had  fallen  away, 
and  the  morning  sun  shone  warm  on  what  in  a 
friendlier  climate  would  have  been  a  very  lovely 
landscape.  The  bay  was  an  irregular  oval,  with 
shores  that  rose  in  bold  but  not  lofty  heights  on 
one  side,  while  on  the  other  lay  a  narrow  plain 
with  two  villages  clinging  about  the  road  that 
followed  the  crescent  beach,  and  lifting  each  the 
slender  tin-clad  spire  of  its  church  to  sparkle  in 
the  sun. 

At  the  head  of  the  bay  was  a  mountainous  top, 
and  along  its  waters  were  masses  of  rocks,  gayly 
painted  with  lichens  and  stained  with  metallic 
tints  of  orange  and  scarlet.  The  unchanging 
growth  of  stunted  pines  was  the  only  forest  in  sight, 
though  Ha-Ha  Bay  is  a  famous  lumbering  port,  and 
some  schooners  now  lay  there  receiving  cargoes  of 
odorous  pine  plank.  The  steamboat-wharf  was  all 


38  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

astir  with  the  liveliest  toil  and  leisure.  The  boat 
was  taking  on  wood,  which  was  brought  in  wheel 
barrows  to  the  top  of  the  steep,  smooth  gangway- 
planking,  where  the  habitant  in  charge  planted  his 
broad  feet  for  the  downward  slide,  and  was  hurled 
aboard  more  or  less  en,  masse  by  the  fierce  velocity 
of  his  heavy-laden  wheelbarrow.  Amidst  the  con 
fusion  and  hazard  of  this  feat  a  procession  of  other 
habitans  marched  aboard,  each  one  bearing  under 
his  arm  a  coffin-shaped  wooden  box.  The  rising 
fear  of  Colonel  Ellison,  that  these  boxes  repre 
sented  the  loss  of  the  whole  infant  population  of 
Ha-Ha  Bay,  was  checked  by  the  reflection  that 
the  region  could  not  have  produced  so  many  chil 
dren,  and  calmed  altogether  by  the  purser,  who  said 
that  they  were  full  of  huckleberries,  and  that  Col 
onel  Ellison  could  have  as  many  as  he  liked  for  fif 
teen  cents  a  bushel.  This  gave  him  a  keen  sense 
of  the  poverty  of  the  land,  and  he  bought  of  the 
boys  who  came  aboard  such  abundance  of  wild 
red  raspberries,  in  all  manner  of  birch-bark  canoes 
and  goblets  and  cornucopias,  that  he  was  obliged 
to  make  presents  of  them  to  the  very  dealers  whose 
stock  he  had  exhausted,  and  he  was  in  treaty  with 
the  local  half-wit  —  very  fine,  with  a  hunchback, 
and  a  massive  wen  on  one  side  of  his  head —  to  take 
charity  in  the  wild  fruits  of  his  native  province, 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  39 

when  the  crowd  about  him  was  gently  opened  by 
a  person  who  advanced  with  a  flourishing  bow  and 
a  sprightly  "  Good  morning,  good  morning,  sir  !  " 
"  How  do  you  do  1  "  asked  Colonel  Ellison  ;  but 
the  other,  intent  on  business,  answered,  "  I  am  the 
only  person  at  Ha-Ha  Bay  who  speaks  English,  and 
I  have  come  to  ask  if  you  would  not  like  to  make  a 
promenade  in  my  horse  and  buggy  upon  the  moun 
tain  before  breakfast.  You  shall  be  gone  as  long 
as  you  will  for  one  shilling  and  sixpence.  I  will 
show  you  all  that  there  is  to  be  seen  about  the 
place,  and  the  beautiful  view  of  the  bay  from  the  top 
of  the  mountain.  But  it  is  elegant,  you  know,  I 
can  assure  you." 

The  speaker  was  so  fluent  of  his  English,  he  had 
such  an  audacious,  wide-branching  mustache,  such 
a  twinkle  in  his  left  eye,  —  which  wore  its  lid  in  a 
careless,  slouching  fashion,  —  that  the  heart  of  man 
naturally  clove  to  him  ;  and  Colonel  Ellison  agreed 
on  the  spot  to  make  the  proposed  promenade,  for 
himself  and  both  his  ladies,  of  whom  he  went  joy 
fully  in  search.  He  found  them  at  the  stern  of  the 
boat,  admiring  the  wild  scenery,  and  looking 

"  Fresh  as  the  morn  and  as  the  season  fair." 
He  was  not  a  close  observer,  and  of  his  wife's  ward 
robe  he  had  the  ignorance  of  a  good  husband,  who, 
us  suoii  as  the  pang  of  paying  for  her  dresses  is 


40  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

past,  forgets  whatever  she  has ;  but  he  could  not 
help  seeing  that  some  gayeties  of  costume  which  he 
had  dimly  associated  with  his  wife  now  enhanced 
the  charms  of  his  cousin's  nice  little  face  and  figure. 
A  scarf  of  lively  hue  carelessly  tied  about  the  throat 
to  keep  off  the  morning  chill,  a  prettier  ribbon,  a 
more  stylish  jacket  than  Miss  Ellison  owned, —  what 
do  I  know  1 — an  air  of  preparation  for  battle,  caught 
the  colonel's  eye,  and  a  conscious  red  stole  respon 
sive  into  Kitty's  cheek. 

"  Kitty,"  said  he,  "don't  you  let  yourself  be  made 
a  goose  of." 

"  I  hope  she  won't  —  by  you  !  "  retorted  his  wife, 
"  and  I  '11  thank  you,  Colonel  Ellison,  not  to  be  a 
Betty,  whatever  you  are.  I  don't  think  it 's  manly 
to  be  always  noticing  ladies'  clothes." 

"  Who  said  anything  about  clothes  1 "  demand 
ed  the  colonel,  taking  his  stand  upon  the  letter. 

"  Well,  don't  you,  at  any  rate.  Yes,  I  'd  like  to 
ride,  of  all  things  ;  and  we  've  time  enough,  for 
breakfast  is  n't  ready  till  half  past  eight.  Where  's 
the  carriage  1 " 

The  only  English  scholar  at  Ha-Ha  Bay  had  tak 
en  the  light  wraps  of  the  ladies  and  was  moving 
off  with  them.  "  This  way,  this  way,"  he  said,  wav 
ing  his  hand  towards  a  larger  number  of  vehicles 
on  the  shore  than  could  have  been  reasonably  at- 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  41 

trihnted  to  Ha-Ha  Bay.  "  I  hope  you  won't  object 
to  having  another  passenger  with  you?  There's 
plenty  of  room  for  all.  He  seenis  a  very  nice,  gen 
tlemanly  person,"  said  he,  with  a  queer,  patroniz 
ing  gracionsness  which  he  had  no  doubt  caught 
from  his  English  patrons. 

"  The  more  the  merrier,"  answered  Colonel  Elli 
son,  and  "  Not  in  the  least !  "  said  his  wife,  not 
meaning  the  proverb.  Her  eye  had  swept  the 
whole  array  of  vehicles  and  had  found  them  all 
empty,  save  one,  in  which  she  detected  the  blame 
lessly  coated  back  of  Mr.  Arbuton.  But  I  ought 
perhaps  to  explain  Mrs.  Ellison's  motives  better 
than  they  can  be  made  to  appear  in  her  conduct. 
She  cared  nothing  for  Mr.  Arbuton  ;.  and  she  had 
no  logical  wish  to  see  Kitty  in  love  with  him. 
But  here  were  two  yoimg  people  thrown  somewhat 
romantically  together ;  Mrs.  Ellison  was  a  born 
match-maker,  and  to  have  refrained  from  promot 
ing  their  better  acquaintance  in  the  interest  of  ab 
stract  matrimony  was  what  never  could  have  en 
tered  into  her  thought  or  desire.  Her  whole  being 
closed  for  the  time  about  this  purpose  ;  her  heart, 
always  warm  towards  Kitty,  — Whom  she  admired 
with  a  sort  of  generous  frenzy,  —  expanded  with 
all  kinds  of  lovely  designs  ;  in  a  word,  every  dress 
she  had  she  would  instantly  have  bestowed  upon 


42  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

that  worshipful  creature  who  was  capable  of  add 
ing  another  marriage  to  the  world.  I  hope  the 
reader  finds  nothing  vulgar  or  unbecoming  in  this, 
for  I  do  not ;  it  was  an  enthusiasm,  pure  and  sim 
ple,  a  beautiful  and  unselfish  abandon  ;  and  I  am 
sure  men  ought  to  be  sorry  that  they  are  not 
worthier  to  be  favored  by  it.  Ladies  have  often 
to  lament  in  the  rnidst  of  their  finesse  that,  really, 
no  man  is  deserving  the  fate  they  devote  themselves 
to  prepare  for  him,  or,  in  other  words,  that  women 
cannot  marry  women. 

I  am  not  going  to  be  so  rash  as  try  to  depict 
Mrs.  Ellison's  arts,  for  then,  indeed,  I  should 
make  her  appear  the  clumsy  conspirator  she  was 
not,  and  should  merely  convict  myself  of  ignorance 
of  such  matters.  Whether  Mr.  Arbuton  was  ever 
aware  of  them,  I  am  not  sure  :  as  a  man  lie  was, 
of  course,  obtuse  and  blind  ;  but  then,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  had  seen  far  more  of  the  world  than  Mrs. 
Ellison,  and  she  may  have  been  clear  as  day  to 
him.  Probably,  though,  he  did  not  detect  any 
design  ;  he  could  not  have  conceived  of  such  a 
thing  in  a  person  with  whom  he  had  been  so  irreg 
ularly  made  acquainted,  and  to  whom  he  felt  him 
self  so  hopelessly  superior.  A  film  of  ice  such  as 
in  autumn  you  find  casing  the  still  pools  early  in 
the  frosty  mornings  had  gathered  upon  his  manner 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  43 

over  night ;  but  it  thawed  under  the  greetings  of 
the  others,  and  he  jumped  actively  out  of  the  vehi 
cle  to  offer  the  ladies  their  choice  of  seats.  When 
all  was  arranged  he  found  himself  at  Mrs.  Ellison's 
side,  for  Kitty  had  somewhat  eagerly  climbed  to 
the  front  seat  with  the  colonel.  In  these  circum 
stances  it  was  pure  zeal  that  sustained  Mrs.  Elli 
son  in  the  flattering  constancy  with  which  she 
babbled  on  to  Mr.  Arbuton  and  refrained  from 
openly  resenting  Kitty's  contumacy. 

As  the  wagon  began  to  ascend  the  hill,  the  road 
was  so  rough  that  the  springs  smote  together  with 
pitiless  jolts,  and  the  ladies  uttered  some  irrepress 
ible  moans.  "  Never  mind,  my  dear,"  said  the 
colonel,  turning  about  to  his  wife,  "  we  Ve  got  all 
the  English  there  is  at  Ha-Ha  Bay,  any  way." 
Whereupon  the  driver  gave  him  a  wink  of  sudden 
liking  and  good-fellowship.  At  the  same  time  his 
tongue  was  loosed,  and  he  began  to  talk  of  him 
self.  "  You  see  my  dog,  how  he  leaps  at  the 
horse's  nose  1  He  is  a  moose-dog,  and  keeps  him 
self  in  practice  of  catching  the  moose  by  the  nose. 
You  ought  to  come  in  the  hunting  season.  I 
could  furnish  you  with  Indians  and  everything  you 
need  to  hunt  with.  I  am.  a  dealer  in  wild  beasts, 
you  know,  and  I  must  keep  prepared  to  take  them." 

"Wild  beasts]" 


44  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

"Yes,  for  Barn um  and  the  other  showmen.  I 
deal  in  deer,  wolf,  bear,  beaver,  moose,  cariboo, 
•wild-cat,  link  — 

"What?" 

"  Link  —  link  !  You  say  deer  for  deers,  and 
l;*ik  for  lynx,  don't  you1?" 

"  Ortainly,"  answered  the  unblushing  colonel. 
"Are  there  many  link  about  here1?" 

"  Not  many,  and  they  are  a  very  expensive 
animal.  I  have  been  shamefully  treated  in  a  link 
that  I  have  soM  to  a  Boston  showman.  It  was  a 
difficult  beast  to  take  ;  bit  my  Indian  awfully  ; 
and  Mr.  Doolittle  would  not  give  the  price  he 
promised." 

"  What  an  outrage  !  " 

"Yes,  but  it  was  not  so  bad  as  it  might  have 
been.  He  wanted  the  money  back  afterwards  ; 
the  link  died  in  about  two  weeks,"  said  the  dealer 
in  wild  animals,  with  a  smile  that  curled  his 
mustache  into  his  ears,  and  a  glance  at  Colonel 
Ellison.  "  He  may  have  been  bruised,  I  suppose. 
He  may  have  been  homesick.  Perhaps  he  was 
never  a  very  strong  link.  The  link  is  a  curious 
animal,  miss,"  he  said  to  Kitty,  in  conclusion. 

They  had  been  slowly  climbing  the  mountain 
road,  from  which,  on  either  hand,  the  past.urc- 
lauds  fell  away  in  long,  irregular  knolk  and  hoi- 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  45 

lows.  The  tops  were  quite  barren,  but  in  the 
little  vales,  despite  the  stones,  a  short  grass  grew 
very  thick  and  tenderly  green,  and  groups  of  kiiie 
tinkled  their  soft  bells  in  a  sweet,  desultory  asso 
nance  as  they  cropped  the  herbage.  Below,  the 
bay  filled  the  oval  of  the  hills  with  its  sunny  ex 
panse,  and  the  white  steamer,  where  she  lay  beside 
the  busy  wharf,  and  the  black  lumber-ships,  gave 
their  variety  to  the  pretty  scene,  which  was  com 
pleted  by  the  picturesque  villages  on  the  shore. 
It  was  a  very  simple  sight,  but  somehow  very 
touching,  as  if  the  soft  spectacle  were  but  a 
respite  from  desolation  and  solitude  ;  as  indeed  it 
was. 

Mr.  Arbuton  must  have  been  talking  of  travel 
elsewhere,  for  now  he  said  to  Mrs.  Ellison,  "  This 
looks  like  a  bit  of  Norway  ;  the  bay  yonder  might 
very  well  be  a  fjord  of  the  Northern  sea." 

Mrs.  Ellison  murmured  her  sense  of  obligation 
to  the  bay,  the  fjord,  and  Mr.  Arbuton,  for  their 
complaisance,  and  Kitty  remembered  that  he  had 
somewhat  snubbed  her  the  night  before  for  attrib 
uting  any  suggestive  grace  to  the  native  scen 
ery.  "  Then  you  've  really  found  something  in  an 
American  landscape.  1  suppose  we  ought  to  con 
gratulate  it,"  she  said,  in  smiling  enjoyment  of  her 
triumph. 


4G  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

The  colonel  looked  at  her  with  eyes  of  humor 
ous  question ;  Mrs.  Ellison  looked  blank ;  and 
Mr.  Arbuton,  having  quite  forgotten  what  he  had 
said  to  provoke  this  comment  now,  looked  puzzled 
and  answered  nothing  :  for  he  had  this  trait  also 
in  common  with  the  sort  of  Englishman  for 
whom  he  was  taken,  that  he  never  helped  out 
your  conversational  venture,  but  if  he  failed  to 
respond  inwardly,  left  you  with  your  unaccepted 
remark  upon  your  hands,  as  it  were.  In  his 
silence,  Kitty  fell  a  prey  to  very  evil  thoughts  of 
him,  for  it  made  her  harmless  sally  look  like  a 
blundering  attack  upon  him.  But  just  then  the 
driver  came  to  her  rescue ;  he  said,  "  Gentlemen 
and  ladies,  this  is  the  end  of  the  mountain  prom 
enade,"  and,  turning  his  horse's  head,  drove  rap 
idly  back  to  the  village. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill  they  came  again  to  the 
church,  and  his  passengers  wanted  to  get  out  and 
look  into  it.  "0  certainly,"  said  he,  "it  is, n't 
finished  yet,  but  you  can  say  as  many  prayers  as 
you  like  in  it." 

The  church  was  decent  and  clean,  like  most 
Canadian  churches,  and  at  this  early  hour  there 
was  a  good  number  of  the  villagers  at  their  devo 
tions.  The  lithographic  pictures  of  the  stations 
to  Calvary  were,  of  course,  on  its  walls,  and  there 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  47 

was  the  ordinary  tawdriness  of  paint  and  carving 
about  the  high  altar. 

"  I  don't  like  to  see  these  things,"  said  Mrs. 
Ellison.  "  It  really  seems  to  savor  of  idolatry. 
Don't  you  think  so,  Mr.  Arbutou  1 " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  I  doubt  if  they  're  the 
sort  of  people  to  be  hurt  by  it." 

"  They  need  a  good  stout  faith  in  cold  climates, 
I  can  tell  you,"  said  the  colonel.  "  It  helps  to 
keep  them  warm.  The  broad  church  would  be  too 
full  of  draughts  up  here.  They  want  something 
snug  and  tight.  Just  imagine  one  of  these  poor 
devils  listening  to  a  liberal  sermon  about  birds 
and  fruits  and  flowers  and  beautiful  sentiments, 
and  then  driving  home  over  the  hills  with  the 
mercury  thirty  degrees  below  zero  !  He  could  n't 
stand  it." 

"  Yes,  yes,  certainly,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton,  and 
looked  about  him  with  an  eye  of  cold,  uncom- 
passionate  inspection,  as  if  he  were  jtrving  it  by  a 
standard  of  taste,  and,  on  the  wholejjincliugjthe 
poor  little  church  vulgar. 

When  they  mounted  to  their  places  again,  the 
talk  fell  entirely  to  the  colonel,  who,  as  his  wont 
was,  got  what  information  he  could  out  of  the 
driver.  It  appeared,  in  spite  of  his  theory,  that 
they  were  not  all  good  Catholics  at  Ha-Ha  Bay. 


48  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"This  chap,  for  example,"  said  the  Frenchman, 
touching  himself  on  the  breast  and  using  the  slang 
he  must  have  picked  up  from  American  travel 
lers,  "  is  no  Catholic,  — not  much  !  He  has  made 
too  many  studies  to  care  for  religion.  There 's 
a  large  French  party,  sir,  in  Canada,  that  's  op 
posed  to  the  priests  and  in  favor  of  annexation." 

He  satisfied  the  colonel's  utmost  curiosity,  dis 
coursing,  as  he  drove  by  the  log-built  cottages 
which  were  now  and  then  sheathed  in  birch-bark, 
upon  the  local  affairs,  and  the  character  and  his 
tory  of  such  of  his  fellow-villagers  as  they  met. 
He  knew7  the  pretty  girls  upon  the  street  and 
saluted  them  by  name,  interrupting  himself  with 
these  courtesies  in  the  lecture  he  was  giving  the 
colonel  on  life  at  Ha-Ha  Bay.  There  was  only 
one  brick  house  (which  he  had  built  himself,  but 
had  been  obliged  to  sell  in  a  season  unfavorable 
for  wild  beasts),  and  the  other  edifices  dropped 
through  the  social  scale  to  some  picturesque  barns 
thatched  with  straw.  These  he  excused  to  his 
Americans,  but  added  that  the  ungainly  thatch 
was  sometimes  useful  in  saving  the  lives  of  the 
cattle  toward  the  end  of  an  unusually  long,  hard 
winter. 

"  And  the  people,"  asked  the  colonel,  "  what  do 
they  do  in  the  winter  to  pass  the  time  1 "  ^ 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  49 

"  Draw  the  wood,  smoke  the  pipe,  court  the 
ladies.  —  But  would  n't  you  like  to  see  the  inside 
of  one  of  our  poor  cottages  ]  I  shall  be  very 
proud  to  have  you  look  at  mine,  and  to  have  you 
drink  a  glass  of  milk  from  my  cows.  I  am  sorry 
that  I  cannot  offer  you  brandy,  but  there's  none 
to  be  bought  in  the  place." 

"  Don't  speak  of  it !  For  an  eye-opener  there  is 
nothing  like  a  glass  of  milk,"  gayly  answered  the 
colonel. 

They  entered  the  best  room  of  the  house,  — 
wide,  low-ceiled,  dimly  lit  by  two  small  windows, 
and  fortified  against  the  winter  by  a  huge  Canada 
stove  of  cast-iron.  It  was  rude  but  neat,  and  had 
an  air  of  decent  comfort.  Through  the  window 
appeared  a  very  little  vegetable  garden  with  a 
border  of  the  hardiest  flowers.  "  The  large  beans 
there,"  explained  the  host,  "are  for  soup  and 
coffee.  My  corn,"  he  said,  pointing  out  some  rows 
of  dwarfish  maize,  "  has  escaped  the  early  August 
frosts,  and  so  I  expect  to  have  some  roasting-ears 
yet  this  summer." 

"  Well,  it  is  n't  exactly  what  you  'd  call  an  in 
viting  climate,  is  it  I "  asked  the  colonel. 

The  Canadian  seemed  a  hard  little  man,  but  he 
answered  now  with  a  kind  of  pathos,  "  It 's  cruel ! 
I  came  here  when  it  was  all  bush.     Twenty  years 
3  i> 


50  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

I  have  lived  here,  and  it  has  not  been  worth  while. 
If  it  was  to  do  over  again,  I  should  rather  not  live 
anywhere.  I  was  born  in  Quebec,"  he  said,  as  if 
to  explain  that  he  was  used  to  mild  climates, 
and  began  to  tell  of  some  events  of  his  life  at 
Ha-Ha  Bay.  "  I  wish  you  were  going  to  stay 
here  awhile  with  me.  You  would  n't  find  it  so 
bad  in  the  summer-time,  I  can  assure  you.  There 
are  bears  in  the  bush,  sir,"  he  said  to  the  colonel, 
"and  you  might  easily  kill  one." 

"  But  then  I  should  be  helping  to  spoil  your 
trade  in  wild  beasts,"  replied  the  colonel,  laughing. 

Mr.  Arbuton  looked  like  one  who  might  be  very 
tired  of  this.  He  made  no  sign  of  interest  either 
in  the  early  glooms  and  privations  or  the  summer 
bears  of  Ha-Ha  Bay.  He  sat  in  the  quaint  parlor, 
with  his  hat  on  his  knee,  in  the  decorous  and 
patient  attitude  of  a  gentleman  making  a  call. 

He  had  no  feeling,  Kitty  said  to  herself;  but 
that  is  a  matter  about  which  we  can  easily  be 
wrong.  It  was  rather  to  be  said  of  Mr.  Arbuton 
that  he  had  always  shrunk  from  knowledge  of 
things  outside  of  a  very  narrow  world,  and  that 
lie  had  not  a  ready  imagination.  Moreover,  he 
had  a  personal  dislike,  as  I  may  call  it,  of  pov 
erty  ;  and  he  did  not  enjoy  this  poverty  as  she 
did,  because  it  was  strange  and  suggestive,  though 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  51 

doubtless  he  would  have  doue  as  much  to  relieve 
distress. 

"  Rather  too  much  of  his  autobiography,"  he 
said  to  Kitty,  as  he  waited  outside  the  door  with 
her,  while  the  Canadian  quieted  his  dog,  which 
was  again  keeping  himself  in  practice  of  catching 
the  moose  by  making  vicious  leaps  at  the  horse's 
nose.  "  The  egotism  of  that  kind  of  people  is 
always  so  aggressive.  But  I  suppose  he  's  in  the 
habit  of  throwing  himself  upon  the  sympathy 
of  summer  visitors  in  this  way.  You  can't  offer 
a  man  so  little  as  shilling  and  sixpence  who 's 
taken  you  into  his  confidence.  Did  you  find 
enough  that  was  novel  in  his  place  to  justify  him 
in  bringing  us  here,  Miss  Ellison  ] "  he  asked  with 
an  air  he  had  of  taking  you  of  course  to  be  of  his 
mind,  and  which  equally  offended  you  whether  you 
were  so  or  not. 

Every  face  that  they  had  seen  in  their  drive  had 
told  its  pathetic  story  to  Kitty  ;  every  cottage 
that  they  passed  she  had  entered  in  thought,  and 
dreamed  out  its  humble  drama.  What  their  host 
had  said  gave  breath  and  color  to  her  fancies  of 
the  struggle  of  life  there,  and  she  was  startled  and 
shocked  when  this  cold  doubt  was  cast  upon  the 
sympathetic  tints  of  her  picture.  She  did  not  know 
what  to  say  at  first;  she  looked  at  Mr.  Arbuton 


52  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

with  a  sudden  glance  of  embarrassment  and  trouble; 
then  she  answered,  "1  was  very  much  interested. 
I  don't  agree  with  you,  I  believe  "  ;  which,  when 
she  heard  it,  seemed  a  resentful  little  speech,  and 
made  her  willing  for  some  occasion  to  soften  its 
effect.  But  nothing  occurred  to  her  during  the 
brief  drive  back  to  the  boat,  save  the  fact  that  the 
morning  air  was  delicious. 

"  Yes,  but  rather  cool,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton,  whose 
feelings  apparently  had  not  needed  any  balm  ;  and 
the  talk  fell  again  to  the  others. 

On  the  pier  he  helped  her  down  from  the  wagon, 
for  the  colonel  was  intent  on  something  the  driver 
was  saying,  and  then  offered  his  hand  to  Mrs. 
Ellison. 

She  sprang  from  her  place,  but  stumbled  slight 
ly,  and  when  she  touched  the  ground,  "  I  believe 
I  turned  my  foot  a  little,"  she  said  with  a  laugh. 
"  It  's  nothing,  of  course,"  and  fainted  in  his 
arms. 

Kitty  gave  a  cry  of  alarm,  and  the  next  instant 
the  colonel  had  relieved  Mr.  Arbuton.  It  was  a 
scene,  and  nothing  coulcl  have  annoyed  him  more 
than  this  tumult  which  poor  Mrs.  Ellison's  mis 
fortune  occasioned  among  the  bystanding  habitans 
and  deck-hands,  and  the  passengers  eagerly  cran 
ing  forward  over  the  bulwarks,  and  running  ashore 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  53 

to  see  what  the  matter  was.  Few  men  know  just 
how  to  offer  those  little  offices  of  helpfulness  which 
such  emergencies  demand,  and  Mr.  Arbuton  could 
do  nothing  after  he  was  rid  of  his  burden;  he 
hovered  anxiously  and  uselessly  about,  while  Mrs. 
Ellison  was  carried  to  an  airy  position  on  the  bow 
of  the  boat,  where  in  a  few  minutes  he  had  the 
great  satisfaction  of  seeing  her  open  her  eyes.  It 
was  not  the  moment  for  him  to  speak,  and  he 
walked  somewhat  guiltily  away  with  the  dispersing 
crowd. 

Mrs.  Ellison  addressed  her  first  words  to  palo 
Kitty  at  her  side.  "  You  can  have  all  my  things, 
now,"  she  said,  as  if  it  were  a  clause  in  her  will, 
and  perhaps  it  had  been  her  last  thought  before 
unconsciousness. 

"  Why,  Fanny,"  cried  Kitty,  with  an  hysterical 
laugh,  "  you  're  not  going  to  die !  A  sprained 
ankle  is  n't  fatal  !  " 

"  No ;  but  I  've  heard  that  a  person  with  a 
sprained  ankle  can't  put  their  foot  to  the  ground 
for  weeks  ;  and  I  shall  only  want  a  dressing-gown, 
you  know,  to  lie  on  the  sofa  in."  With  that,  Mrs.  /]/y\ 
Ellison  placed  her  hand  tenderly  on  Kitty's  head, 
like  a  mother  wondering  what  will  become  of  a 

vs/^ssyxNSl/s^/^1*^^^^^^^ 

helpless  child  during  her  disability  ;  in  fact  she 
was  mentally  weighing  the  advantages  of  her 


54  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

wardrobe,  which  Kitty  would  DOW  fully  enjoy, 
against  the  loss  of  the  friendly  strategy  which  she 
would  now  lack.  Helpless  to  decide  the  matter, 
she  heaved  a  sigh. 

"But,  Fanny,  you  won't  expect  to  travel  in  a 
dressing-gown." 

"  Indeed,  I  wish  I  knew  whether  I  could  travel 
in  anything  or  not.  But  the  next  twenty-four 
hours  will  show.  If  it  swells  up,  I  shall  have  to 
rest  awhile  at  Quebec  ;  and  if  it  does  n't,  there 
may  be  something  internal.  I  've  read  of  acci 
dents  when  the  person  thought  they  were  per 
fectly  well  and  comfortable,  and  the  first  thing 
they  knew  they  were  in  a  very  dangerous  state. 
That 's  the  worst  of  these  internal  injuries  :  you 
never  can  tell.  Not  that  I  think  there  's  anything 
of  that  kind  the  matter  with  me.  But  a  few  days' 
rest  won't  do  any  harm,  whatever  happens ;  the 
stores  in  Quebec  arc  quite  as  good  and  a  little 
cheaper  than  in  Montreal ;  and  I  could  go  about 
in  a  carriage,  you  know,  and  put  in  the  time  as 
well  in  one  place  as  the  other.  I  'm  sure  we 
could  get  on  very  pleasantly  there  ;  and  the  col 
onel  need  n't  be  home  for  a  month  yet.  I  suppose 
that  I  could  hobble  into  the  stores  on  a  crutch." 

Whilst  Mrs.  Ellison's  monologue  ran  on  with 
scarcely  a  break  from  Kitty,  her  husband  was  gone 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  55 

to  fetch  her  a  cup  of  tea  and  such  other  light 
refreshment  as  a  lady  may  take  after  a  swoon. 
When  he  returned  she  bethought  herself  of  Mr. 
Arbuton,  who,  having  once  come  back  to  see  if  all 
was  going  well,  had  vanished  again. 

"  Why,  our  friend  Boston  is  bearing  up  under  his 
share  of  the  morning's  work  like  a  hero  —  or  a 
lady  with  a  sprained  ankle,"  said  the  colonel  as  he 
arranged  the  provision.  "  To  see  the  havoc  he  's 
making  in  the  ham  and  eggs  and  chiccory  is  to  be 
convinced  that  there  is  no  appetizer  like  regret  for 
the  sufferings  of  others." 

"  Why,  and  here  's  poor  Kitty  not  had  a  bite 
yet !  "  cried  Mrs.  Ellison.  "  Kitty,  go  off  at  once 
and  get  your  breakfast.  Put  on  my  — 

"  0,  dont,  Fanny,  or  I  can't  go ;  and  I  'm  really 
very  hungry." 

"  Well,  I  won't  then,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison,  seeing 
the  rainy  cloud  in  Kitty's  eyes.  "Go  just  as  you 
are,  and  don't  mind  me."  And  so  Kitty  went, 
gathering  courage  at  every  pace,  and  sitting  down 
opposite  Mr.  Arbuton  with  a  vivid  color  to  be  sure, 
but  otherwise  lion-bold.  He  had  been  upbraiding 
the  stars  that  had  thrust  him  further  and  further 
at  every  step  into  the  intimacy  of  these  people,  as 
he  called  them  to  himself.  It  was  just  twenty- 
four  hours,  he  rclloctc'd,  since  he  had  met  them, 


50  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

and  resolved  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  them,  and 
in  that  time  the  young  lady  had  brought  him  un 
der  the  necessity  of  apologizing  for  a  blunder  of 
her  own  ;  he  had  played  the  eavesdropper,  to  her 
talk  ;  he  had  sentimentalized  the  midnight  hour 
with  her ;  they  had  all  taken  a  morning  ride  to 
gether  ;  and  he  had  ended  by  having  Mrs.  Ellison 
sprain  her  ankle  and  faint  in  his  arms.  It  was 
outrageous ;  and  what  made  it  worse  was  that 
decency  obliged  him  to  take  henceforth  a  regret 
ful,  deprecatory  attitude  towards  Mrs.  Ellison, 
whom  he  liked  least  among  these  people.  So  he 
sat  vindictively  eating  an  enormous  breakfast,  in 
a  sort  of  angry  abstraction,  from  which  Kitty's 
coming  roused  him  to  say  that  he  hoped  Mrs. 
Ellison  was  better. 

"  0,  very  much  !     It  'p  just  a  sprain." 

"  A  sprain  may  be  a  very  annoying  thing,"  said 
Mr.  Arbuton  dismally.  "Miss  Ellison,"  he  cried, 
"  I  've  been  nothing  but  an  affliction  to  your  party 
since  I  came  on  board  this  boat !  " 

"  Do  you  think  evil  genius  of  our  party  would 
be  too  harsh  a  term  1 "  suggested  Kitty. 

"  Not  in  the  least ;  it  would  be  a  mere  euphemism, 
• —  base  flattery,  in  fact.  Call  me  something  worse." 

"  I  can't  think  of  anything.  I  must  leave  you 
to  your  own  conscience.  It  was  a  pity  to  end  our 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  57 

ride  in  that  way ;  it  would  have  been  such  a 
pleasant  ride  !  "  And  Kitty  took  heart  from  his 
apparent  mood  to  speak  of  some  facts  of  the 
morning  that  had  moved  her  fancy.  "  What  a 
strange  little  nest  it  is  up  here  among  these  half- 
thawed  hills  !  and  imagine  the  winter,  the  fifteen 
or  twenty  months  of  it,  they  must  have  every 
year.  I  could  almost  have  shed  tears  over  that 
patch  of  corn  that  had  escaped  the  early  August 
frosts.  I  suppose  this  is  a  sort  of  Indian  summer 
that  we  are  enjoying  now,  and  that  the  cold  weath 
er  will  set  in  after  a  week  or  two.  My  cousin  and 
I  thought  that  Tadoussac  was  somewhat  retired 
and  composed  last  night,  but  I  'm  sure  that  I  shall 
see  it  in  its  true  light,  as  a  metropolis,  going  back. 
I  'm  afraid  that  the  turmoil  and  bustle  of  Erie- 
creek,  when  I  get  home  —  " 

"  Eriecreek ']  —  when  you  get  home?  —  I  thought 
you  lived  at  Milwaukee." 

"  0  no  !  It 's  my  cousins  who  live  at  Milwaukee. 
I  live  at  Eriecreek,  New  York  State." 

"  Oh  !  "  Mr.  Arbuton  looked  blank  and  not  al 
together  pleased.  Milwaukee  was  bad  enough, 
though  he  ^understood  that  it  was  largely  peopled 
from  New  England,  and-  had  a  great  German  ele 
ment,  which  might  account  for  the  fact  that  these 
people  were  not  quite  barbaric.  But  this  Erie- 
3* 


58  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

creek,  New  York  State  !  "I  don't  think  I  've  heard 
of  it,'1  he  said. 

"  It 's  a  small  place,"  observed  Kitty,  "  and  I 
believe  it  isn't  noted  for  anything  in  particular; 
it 's  not  even  on  any  railroad.  It 's  in  the  north 
west  part  of  the  State." 

"  Is  n't  it  in  the  oil-regions  1 "  groped  Mr.  Arbu- 
ton. 

"  Why,  the  oil-regions  are  rather  migratory,  you 
know.  It  used  to  be  in  the  oil-regions ;  but  the 
oil  was  pumped  out,  and  then  the  oil-regions  grace 
fully  withdrew  and  left  the  cheese-regions  and 
grape-regions  to  come  back  and  take  possession  of 
the  old  derricks  and  the  rusty  boilers.  You  might 
suppose  from  the  appearance  of  the  meadows,  that 
all  the  boilers  that  ever  blew  up  had  come  down 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Eriecreek.  And  every  field 
has  its  derrick  standing  just  as  the  last  dollar  or 
the  last  drop  of  oil  left  it." 

Mr.  Arbuton  brought  his  fancy  to  bear  upon 
Eriecreek,  and  wholly  failed  to  conceive  of  it.  He 
did  not  like  the  notion  of  its  being  thrust  within 
the  range  of  his  knowledge ;  and  he  resented  its 
being  the  home  of  Miss  Ellison,  whom  he  was  be 
ginning  to  accept  as  a  not  quite  comprehensible 
yet  certainly  agreeable  fact,  though  he  still  had  a 
disposition  to  cast  her  off  as  something  incredible. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  59 

He  asked  no  further  about  Eriecreek,  and  pres 
ently  she  rose  and  went  to  join  her  relatives,  and 
he  went  to  smoke  his  cigar,  and  to^ponder  upon 
the  problem  presented  to  him  in  this  young  girl 
from  whose  locality  and  conjecturable  experiences 
he  was  at  loss  how  to  infer  her  as  he  found  her 
here. 

She  had  a  certain  self-reliance  mingling  with  an 
innocent  trust  of  others  which  Mrs.  Isabel  March 
had  described  to  her  husband  as  a  charm  potent  to 
make  everybody  sympathetic  and  good-natured,  but 
which  it  would  not  be  easy  to  account  for  to  Mr- 
Arbuton.  In  part  it  was  a  natural  gift,  and  partly 
it  came  from  mere  ignorance  of  the  world  ;  it  was 
the  unsnubbed  fearlessness  of  a  heart  which  did 
not  suspect  a  sense  of  social  difference  in  others,  or 
imagine  itself  misprized  for  anything  but  a  fault. 
For  such  a  false  conception  of  her  relations  to  po- 
Iit3  society,  Kitty's  Uncle  Jack  was  chiefly  to 
blame.  In  the  fierce  democracy  of  his  revolt  from 
his  Virginian  traditions  he  had  taught  his  family 
that  a  belief  in  any  save  intellectual  and  moral 
distinctions  was  a  mean  and  cruel  superstition  ;  he 
had  contrived  to  fix  this  idea  so  deeply  in  the  ed 
ucation  of  his  children,  that  it  gave  a  coloring  to 
their  lives,  and  Kitty,  when  her  turn  came,  had 
the  effect  of  it  in  the  character  of  those  about  her. 


GO  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

In  fact  she  accepted  his  extreme  theories  of  equal 
ity  to  a  degree  that  delighted  her  uncle,  who, 
having  held  them  many  years,  was  growing  per 
haps  a  little  languid  in  their  tenure  and  was  glad 
to  have  his  grasp  strengthened  by  her  faith.  So 
cially  as  well  as  politically  Eriecreek  wTas  almost 
a  perfect  democracy,  and  there  was  little  in  Kit 
ty's  circumstances  to  contradict  the  doctor's  teach 
ings  The  brief  visits  which  she  had  made  to 
Buffalo  and  Erie,  and,  since  the  colonel's  marriage, 
to  Milwaukee,  had  not  sufficed  to  undeceive  her; 
she  had  never  suffered  slight  save  from  the  igno 
rant  and  uncouth  ;  she  innocently  expected  that  in 
people  of  culture  she  should  always  find  communi 
ty  of  feeling  and  ideas;  and  she  had  met  Mr.  Ar- 
buton  all  the  more  trustfully  because  as  a  Bostonian 
he  must  be  cultivated. 

In  the  secluded  life  which  she  led  perforce  at 
Eriecreek  therj  was  an  abundance  of  leisure,  which 
she  bestowed  upon  books  at  an  age  when  most 
'girls  are  sent  to  school.  The  doctor  had  a  good 
taste  of  an  old-fashioned  kind  in  literature,  and  he 
had  a  library  pretty  well  stocked  with  the  elderly 
English  authors,  poets  and  essayists  and  novelists, 
and  here  and  there  an  historian,  and  these  Kitty 
read  childlike,  liking  them  at  the  time  in  a  certain 
way,  and  storing  up  in  her  mind  things  that  she  did 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  Gl 

not  understand  for  the  present,  but  whose  beauty 
and  value  dawned  upon  her  from  time  to  time,  as 
she  grew  older.  But  of  far  more  use  and  pleasure 
to  her  than  these  now  somewhat  mouldy  classics 
were  the  more  modern  books  of  her  cousin  Charles, 
—  that  pride  and  hope  of  his  father's  heart,  who 
had  died  the  year  before  she  came  to  Eriecreek. 
He  was  named  after  her  own  father,  and  it  was  as 
if  her  Uncle  Jack  found  both  his  son  and  his 
brother  in  her  again.  When  her  taste  for  reading 
began  to  show  itself  in  force,  the  old  man  one  day 
unlocked  a  certain  bookcase  in  a  little  upper  room, 
and  gave  her  the  key,  saying,  with  a  broken  pride 
and  that  queer  Virginian  pomp  which  still  clung 
to  him,  "  This  was  my  son's,  who  would  one  day 
have  been  a  great  writer  ;  now  it  is  yours."  After 
that  the  doctor  woidd  pick  up  the  books  out  of 
this  collection  which  Kitty  was  reading  and  had 
left  lying  about  the  rooms,  and  look  into  them  a 
little  way.  Sometimes  he  fell  asleep  over  them ; 
sometimes  when  he  opened  on  a  page  pencilled 
with  marginal  notes,  he  would  put  the  volume  gen 
tly  down  and  go  very  quickly  out  of  the  room. 

"  Kitty,  I  reckon  you  'd  better  not  leave  poor 
Charley's  books  around  where  Uncle  Jack  can  get 
at  them,"  one  of  the  girls,  Virginia  or  Rachel, 
would  say ;  "I  don't  believe  he  cares  much  for 


62  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

those  writers,  and  the  sight  of  the  books  just  tries 
him."  So  Kitty  kept  the  books,  and  herself  for 
the  most  part  with  them,  in  the  upper  chamber 
whieh  had  been  Charles  Ellison's  room,  and  where, 
amongst  the  witnesses  of  the  dead  boy's  ambitious 
dreams,  she  grew  dreamer  herself  and  seemed  to 
inherit  with  his  earthly  place  his  own  fine  and 
gentle  spirit. 

The  doctor,  as  his  daughter  suggested,  did  not 
care  much  for  the  modern  authors  in  whom  his  son 
had  delighted.  Like  many  another  simple  and 
pure-hearted  man,  he  thought  that  since  Pope 
there  had  been  no  great  poet  but  Byron,  and  he 
could  make  nothing  out  of  Tennyson  and  Brown 
ing,  or  the  other  contemporary  English  poets. 
Amongst  the  Americans  he  had  a  great  respect  for 
Whittier,  but  he  preferred  Lowell  to  the  rest  be 
cause  he  had  written  The  Biglow  Papers,  and  he 
never  would  allow  that  the  last  series  was  half  so 
good  as  the  first.  These  and  the  other  principal 
poets  of  our  nation  and  language  Kitty  inherited 
from  her  cousin,  as  well  as  a  full  stock  of  the  con 
temporary  novelists  and  romancers,  whom  she 
liked  better  than  the  poets  on  the  whole.  She  had 
also  the  advantage  of  the  magazines  and  reviews 
which  used  to  come  to  him,  and  the  house  over 
flowed  with  newspapers  of  every  kind,  from  the 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  63 

Eriecreek  Courier  to  the  Xew  York  Tribune. 
What  with  the  coming  and  going  of  the  eccentric 
visitors,  and  this  continual  reading,  and  her  rides 
about  the  country  with  her  Uncle  Jack,  Kitty's 
education,  such  as  it  was,  went  on  very  actively 
and  with  the  effect,  at  least,  to  give  her  a  great 
liveliness  of  mind  and  several  decided  opinions. 
Where  it  might  have  warped  her  out  of  natural 
simplicity,  and  made  her  conceited,  the  keen  and 
wholsesome  airs  which  breathed  continually  in  the 
Ellison  household  came  in  to  restore  her.  There 
was  such  kindness  in  this  discipline,  that  she  never 
could  remember  when  it  wounded  her ;  it  was  part 
of  the  gayety  of  those  times  when  she  would  sit 
down  with  the  girls,  and  they  took  up  some  work 
together,  and  rattled  on  in  a  free,  wild,  racy  talk, 
with  an  edge  of  satire  for  whoever  came  near,  a 
fantastic  excess  in  its  drollery,  and  just  a  touch  of 
native  melancholy  tingeing  it.  The  last  queer 
guest,  some  neighborhood  gossip,  some  youthful 
folly  or  pretentiousness  of  Kitty's,  some  trait  of 
their  own,  some  absurdity  of  the  boys  if  they  hap 
pened  to  be  at  home,  and  came  lounging  in,  were 
the  themes  out  of  which  they  contrived  such  jol 
lity  as  never  was,  save  when  in  Uncle  Jack's  pres 
ence  they  fell  upon  some  characteristic  action  or 
theory  of  his  and  turned  it  into  endless  ridicule. 


64  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

But  of  such  people,  of  such  life,  Mr.  Arbuton 
could  have  made  nothing  if  he  had  known  them. 
In  many  things  he  was  an  excellent  person,  and 
greatly  to  be  respected  for  certain  qualities.  He 
was  very  sincere ;  his  mind  had  a  singular  purity 
and  rectitude ;  he  was  a  scrupulously  just  person 
so  far  as  he  knew.  He  had  traits  that  would  have 
fitted  him  very  well  for  the  career  he  had  once 
contemplated,  and  he  had  even  made  some  prelim 
inary  studies  for  the  ministry.  But  the  very  gen 
erosity  of  his  creed  perplexed  him,  his  mislikers 
said ;  contending  that  he  could  never  have  got  on 
with  the  mob  of  the  redeemed.  "  Arbuton,"  said 
a  fat  young  fellow*,  the  supposed  wit  of  the  class, 
"thinks  there  are  persons  of  low  extraction  in 
heaven ;  but  he  does  n't  like  the  idea."  And  Mr. 
Arbuton  did  not  like  the  speaker  very  well,  either, 
nor  any  of  his  poorer  fellow-students,  whose  glove- 
less  and  unfashionable  poverty,  and  meagre  board 
and  lodgings,  and  general  hungry  dependence  upon 
pious  bequests  and  neighborhood  kindnesses,  of 
fended  his  instincts.  "  So  he  's  given  it  up,  has 
he  1 "  moralized  the  same  wit,  upon  his  retirement. 
"  If  Arbuton  could  have  been  a  divinely  com 
missioned  apostle  to  the  best  society,  and  been 
obliged  to  save  none  but  well-connected,  old-estab 
lished,  and  cultivated  souls,  he  might  have  gone 


V 

A  Chance  Acquaintance.  05 

into  the  ministry."  This  was  a  coarse  construc 
tion  of  the  truth,  but  it  was  not  altogether  a  per 
version.  It  was  long  ago  that  he  had  abandoned 
the  thought  of  the  ministry,  and  he  had  since 
travelled,  and  read  law,  and  become  a  man  of 
society  and  of  clubs ;  but  he  still  kept  the  traits 
that  had  seemed  to  make  his  vocation  clear.  On 
the  other  hand  he  kept  the  prejudices  that  were 
imagined  to  have  disqualified  him.  He  was  an 
exclusive  by  training  and  by  instinct.  He  gave 
ordinary  humanity  credit  for  a  certain  measure  of 
sensibility,  and  it  is  possible  that  if  he  had  known 
more  kinds  of  men,  he  would  have  recognized 
merits  and  excellences  which  did  not  now  exist  for 
him ;  but  I  do  not  think  he  would  have  liked 
them.  His  doubt  of  these  Western  people  was  the 
most  natural,  if  not  the  most  justifiable  thing  in 
the  world,  and  for  Kitty,  if  he  could  have  known 
all  about  her,  I  do  not  see  how  he  could  have  be 
lieved  in  her  at  all.  As  it  was,  he  went  in  search 
of  her  party,  when  he  had  smoked  his  cigar,  and 
found  them  on  the  forward  promenade.  She  had 
left  him  in  quite  a  lenient  mood,  although,  as  she 
perceived  with  amusement,  he  had  done  nothing 
to  merit  it,  except  give  her  cousin  a  sprained 
ankle.  At  the  moment  of  his  reappearance,  Mrs. 
Ellison  had  been  telling  Kitty  that  she  thought  it 


66  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

was  beginning  to  swell  a  little,  and  so  it  could  not 
be  anything  internal  \  and  Kitty  had  understood 
that  she  meant  her  ankle  as  well  as  if  she  had  said 
so,  and  had  sorrowed  and  rejoiced  over  her,  and 
the  colonel  had  been  inculpated  for  the  whole 
affair.  This  made  Mr.  Arbuton's  excuses  rather 
needless,  though  they  were  most  graciously  re 
ceived. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  67 

III. 

ON  THE  WAY  BACK  TO  QUEBEC. 

Y  this  time  the  boat  was  moving  down  the 
river,  and  every  one  was  alive  to  the 
scenery.  The  procession  of  the  pine-clad, 
rounded  heights  on  either  shore  began  shortly 
after  Ha-Ha  Bay  had  disappeared  behind  a  curve, 
and  it  hardly  ceased,  save  at  one  point,  before  the 
boat  re-entered  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  shores  of 
the  stream  are  almost  uninhabited.  The  hills  rise 
from  the  water's  edge,  and  if  ever  a  narrow  vale 
divides  them,  it  is  but  to  open  drearier  solitudes 
to  the  eye.  In  such  a  valley  would  stand  a  saw 
mill,  and  huddled  about  it  a  few  poor  huts,  while 
a  friendless  road,  scarce  discernible  from  the  boat, 
wound  up  from  the  river  through  the  valley,  and 
led  to  wildernesses  all  the  forlorner  for  the  devas 
tation  of  their  forests.  Now  and  then  an  island, 
rugged  as  the  shores,  broke  the  long  reaches  of  the 
grim  river  with  its  massive  rock  and  dark  ever 
green,  and  seemed  in  the  distance  to  forbid  escape 
from  those  dreary  waters,  over  which  no  bird  flew, 
and  in  which  it  was  incredible  any  fish  swam. 


68  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

Mrs.  Ellison,  with  her  foot  comfortably  and  not 
ungracefully  supported  on  a  stool,  was  in  so  little 
pain  as  to  be  looking  from  time  to  time  at  one  of 
the  guide-books  which  the  colonel  had  lavished  upon 
his  party,  and  which  she  was  disposed  to  hold  to 
very  strict  account  for  any  excesses  of  description. 

"  It  says  here  that  the  water  of  the  Saguenay 
is  as  black  as  ink.  Do  you  think  it  is,  Richard  1 " 

"  It  looks  so." 

"  Well,  but  if  you  took  some  up  in  your  hand  \  " 

"  Perhaps  it  would  n't  be  as  black  as  the  best 
Maynard  and  Noyes,  but  it  would  be  black  enough 
for  all  practical  purposes." 

"  Maybe,"  suggested  Kitty,  "  the  guide-book 
means  the  kind  that  is  light  blue  at  first,  but  'be 
comes  a  deep  black  on  exposure  to  the  air,'  as  the 
label  says." 

"  What  do  you  think,  Mr.  Arbuton  1 "  asked 
Mrs.  Ellison  with  Xmabated  anxiety. 

'•'Well,  really,  I  don't  know,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton, 
who  thought  it  a  very  trivial  kind  of  talk,  "  I  can't 
say,  indeed.  I  have  n't  taken  any  of  it  up  in  my 
hand." 

"  That 's  true,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison  gravely,  with 
an  accent  of  reproval  for  the  others  who  had  not 
thought  of  so  simple  a  solution  of  the  problem, 
"  very  true." 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  69 

The  colonel  looked  into  her  face  with  an  air  of 
well-feigned  alarm.  "  You  don't  think  the  sprain 
has  gone  to  your  head,  Fanny  ? "  he  asked,  and 
walked  away,  leaving  Mr.  Avbuton  to  the  ladies. 
Mrs.  Ellison  did  not  care  for  this  or  any  other  gibe, 
if  she  but  served  her  own  purposes  ;  and  now, 
having  made  everybody  laugh  and  given  the  con 
versation  a  lively  turn,  she  was  as  perfectly  con 
tent  as  if  she  had  not  been  herself  an  offering  to 
the  cause  of  cheerfulness.  She  was,  indeed,  equal 
ft)  any  sacrifice  in  the  enterprise  she  had  under 
taken,  and  would  not  only  have  given  Kitty  all 
her  worldly  goods,  but  would  have  quite  effaced 
herself  to  further  her  own  designs  upon  Mr.  Ar- 
buton.  She  turned  again  to  her  guide-book,  and 
left  the  young  people  to  continue  the  talk  in  un 
broken  gayety.  They  at  once  became  serious,  as 
most  people  do  after  a  hearty  laugh,  which,  if  you 
think,  seems  always  to  have  something  strange 
and  sad  in  it.  But  besides,  Kitty  was  oppressed 
by  the  coldness  that  seemed  perpetually  to  hover 
in  Mr.  Arbuton's  atmosphere,  while  she  was  inter 
ested  by  his  fastidious  good  looks  and  his  blame 
less  manners  and  his  air  of  a  world  different  from 
any  she  had  hitherto  known.  He  was  one  of  those 
men  whose  perfection  makes  you  feel  guilty  of 
misdemeanor  whenever  they  meet  you,  and  whose 


70  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

greeting  turns  your  honest  good-day  coarse  and 
common  ;  even  Kitty's  fearless  ignorance  and  more 
than  Western  disregard  of  dignities  were  not  proof 
against  him.  She  had  found  it  easy  to  talk  with 
Mrs.  March  as  she  did  with  her  cousin  at  home  : 
she  liked  to  be  frank  and  gay  in  her  parley,  to 
jest  and  to  laugh  and  to  make  harmless  fun,  and  to 
sentimentalize  in  a  half-earnest  way ;  she  liked  to 
be  with  Mr.  Arbuton,  but  now  she  did  not  see  how 
she  could  take  her  natural  tone  with  him.  She 
wondered  at  her  daring  lightness  at  the  breakfast- 
table  ;  she  waited  for  him  to  say  something,  and 
he  said,  with  a  glance  at  the  gray  heaven  that 
always  overhangs  the  Saguenay,  that  it  was  begin 
ning  to  rain,  and  unfurled  the  slender  silk  um 
brella  which  harmonized  so  perfectly  with  the 
London  effect  of  his  dress,  and  held  it  over  her. 
Mrs.  Ellison  sat  within  the  shelter  of  the  project 
ing  roof,  and  diligently  perused  her  book  with  her 
eyes,  and  listened  to  their  talk. 

"  The  great  drawback  to  this  sort  of  thing  in 
America,"  continued  Mr.  Arbuton,  "  is  that  there 
is  no  human  interest  about  the  scenery,  fine  as  it 
is." 

"Why,  I  don't  know,"  said  Kitty,  "there  was 
that  little  settlement  round  the  saw-mill.  Can't 
you  imagine  any  human  interest  in  the  lives  of  the 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  71 

people  there  1  It  seems  to  me  that  one  might 
make  almost  anything  out  of  them.  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  the  owner  of  that  mill  was  a  disap 
pointed  man  who  had  come  here  to  bury  the  wreck 
of  his  life  in  —  sawdust  1 " 

"  0,  yes  !  That  sort  of  thing  ;  certainly.  But 
I  did  n't  mean  that,  I  meant  something  historical. 
There  is  no  past,  no.  atmosphere,  no  traditions,  you 
know." 

"  0,  but  the  Saguenay  has  a  tradition,"  said 
Kitty.  "  You  know  that  a  party  of  the  first  explor 
ers  left  their  comrades  at  Tadoussac,  and  came  up 
the  Saguenay  three  hundred  years  ago,  and  never 
were  seen  or  heard  of  again.  I  think  it 's  so  in 
keeping  with  the  looks  of  the  river.  The  Sague 
nay  would  never  tell  a  secret." 

"  Urn  !  "  uttered  Mr.  Arbuton,  as  if  he  were  not 
quite  sure  that  it  was  the  Saguenay's  place  to  have 
a  legend  of  this  sort,  and  disposed  to  snub  the 
legend  because  the  Sagueuay  had  it.  After  a  little 
silence,  he  began  to  speak  of  famous  rivers  abroad. 

"  I  suppose,"  Kitty  said,  "  the  Rhine  has  tradi 
tions  enough,  has  n't  it  1 " 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  "  but  I  think  the  Rhine 
rather  overdoes  it.  You  can't  help  feeling,  yon 
know,  that  it 's  somewhat  melodramatic  and  — 
common.  Have  vou  ever  seen  the  Rhine  ]  " 


72  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  0,  no  !  This  is  almost  the  first  I  've  seen  of 
anything.  Perhaps,"  she  added,  demurely,  yet 
with  a  tremor  at  finding  herself  about  to  make 
light  of  Mr.  Arbuton,  "  if  I  had  had  too  much  of 
tradition  on  the  Rhine  I  should  want  more  of  it  on 
the  Saguenay." 

'"  Why,  you  must  allow  there 's  a  golden  mean 
in  everything,  Miss  Ellison,"  said  her  companion 
with  a  lenient  laugh,  not  feeling  it  disagreeable  to 
be  made  light  of  by  her. 

"Yes;  and  I  'm  afraid  we  're  going  to  find  Cape 
Trinity  and  Cape  Eternity  altogether  too  big  when 
we  come  to  them.  Don't  you  think  eighteen  hun 
dred  feet  excessively  high  for  a  feature  of  river 
scenery  1 " 

Mr.  Arbuton  really  did  have  an  objection  to  the 
exaggerations  of  nature  on  this  continent,  and  se 
cretly  thought  them  in  bad  taste,  but  he  had  never 
formulated  his  feeling.  He  was  not  sure  but  it 
was  ridiculous,  now  that  it  was  suggested,  and  yet 
the  possibility  was  too  novel  to  be  entertained 
without  suspicion. 

However,  when  after  a  while  the  rumor  of  their 
approach  to  the  great  objects  of  the  Saguenay 
journey  had  spread  among  the  passengers,  and 
they  began  to  assemble  at  points  favorable  for  the 
enjoyment  of  the  spectacle,  he  was  glad  to  have 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  73 

secured  the  place  he  held  with  Miss  Ellison,  and  a 
sympathetic  thrill  of  excitement  passed  through 
his   loath    superiority.     The  rain  ceased  as   they 
drew  nearer,  and  the  gray  clouds  that  had  hung 
so  low  upon  the  hills  sullenly  lifted  from  them  and 
let  their   growing   height  be  seen.     The  captain 
bade  his  sight-seers  look  at  the  vast  Roman  profile 
that  showed  itself  upon  the  rock,  and  then  he 
pointed  out  the  wonderful  Gothic  arch,  the  reputed 
doorway  of  an  unexplored  cavern,  under  which  an 
upright  shaft  of  stone  had  stood  for  ages  statue-like, 
till  not  many  winters  ago  the  frost  heaved  it  from 
its  base,  and  it   plunged  headlong  down  through 
the  ice  into  the  unfathomed  depths  below.     The 
unvarying  gloom  of  the  pines  was  lit  now  by  the 
pensive  glimmer  of  birch-trees,  and  this  gray  tone 
gave  an  indescribable  sentiment  of  pathos  and  of 
age  to  the  scenery.    Suddenly  the  boat  rounded  the 
corner  of  the  three  steps,  each  five  hundred  feet 
high,   in   which    Cape   Eternity  climbs   from   the 
river,  and  crept   in  under  the   naked  side  of  the 
awful  cliff.     It  is  sheer  rock,  springing  from  the 
black  water,  and  stretching  upward  with  a  weary, 
effort-like  aspect,  in  long  impulses  of  stone  marked 
by  deep  seams  from  space  to   space,  till,   fifteen 
hundred  feet  in  air,  its  vast  brow  beetles  forward, 
and   frowns    with    a    scattering    fringe    of    pines. 
4 


74  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

There  are  stains  of  weather  and  of  oozing  springs 
upon  the  front  of  the  cliff,  but  it  is  height  alone 
that  seems  to  seize  the  eye,  and  one  remembers 
afterwards  these  details,  which  are  indeed  so  few 
as  not  properly  to  enter  into  the  effect.  The  rock 
fully  justifies  its  attributive  height  to  the  eye, 
which  follows  the  upward  rush  of  the  mighty 
acclivity,  steep  after  steep,  till  it  wins  the  cloud- 
capt  summit,  when  the  measureless  mass  seems  to 
swing  and  sway  overhead,  and  the  nerves  tremble 
with  the  same  terror  that  besets  him  who  looks 
downward  from  the  verge  of  a  lofty  precipice.  It 
is  wholly  grim  and  stern  ;  no  touch  of  beauty  re 
lieves  the  austere  majesty  of  that  presence.  At 
the  foot  of  Cape  Eternity  the  water  is  of  unknown 
depth,  and  it  spreads,  a  black  expanse,  in  the  round 
ing  hollow  of  shores  of  unimaginable  wildness  and 
desolation,  and  issues  again  in  its  river's  course 
around  the  base  of  Cape  Trinity.  This  is  yet 
loftier  than  the  sister  cliff,  but  it  slopes  gently 
backward  from  the  stream,  and  from  foot  to  crest 
it  is  heavily  clothed  with  a  forest  of  pines.  The 
woods  that  hitherto  have  shagged  the  hills  with  a 
stunted  and  meagre  growth,  showing  long  stretches 
scarred  by  fire,  now  assume  a  stately  size,  and  as 
semble  themselves  compactly  upon  the  side  of  the 
mountain,  setting  their  serried  sterns  one  rank 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  75 

above  another,  till  the  summit  is  crowned  with  the 
mass  of  their  dark  green  plumes,  dense  and  soft 
and  beautiful  ;  so  that  the  spirit  perturbed  by  the 
spectacle  of  the  other  cliff  is  calmed  and  assuaged 
by  the  serene  grandeur  of  this. 

There  have  been,  to  be  sure,  some  human  agen 
cies  at  work  even  under  the  shadow  of  Cape 
Eternity  to  restore  the  spirit  to  self-possession, 
and  perhaps  none  turns  from  it  wholly  dismayed. 
Kitty,  at  any  rate,  took  heart  from  some  works  of 
art  which  the  cliff  wall  displayed  near  the  water's 
edge.  One  of  these  was  a  lively  fresco  portrait  of 
Lieutenant-General  Sherman,  with  the  insignia  of 
his  rank,  and  the  other  was  an  even  more  striking 
effigy  of  General  O'Neil.  of  the  Armies  of  the  Irish 
Republic,  wearing  a  threatening  aspect,  and  de 
signed  in  a  bold  conceit  of  his  presence  there  as 
conqueror  of  Canada  in  the  year  1875.  Mr. 
Arbuton  was  inclined  to  resent  these  intrusions 
upon  the  sublimity  of  nature,  and  he  could  not 
conceive,  without  disadvantage  to  them,  how  Miss 
Ellison  and  the  colonel  should  accept  them  so 
cheerfully  as  part  of  the  pleasure  of  the  whole. 
As  he  listened  blankly  to  their  exchange  of  jests 
he  found  himself  awfully  beset  by  a  temptation 
which  one  of  the  boat's  crew  placed  before  the  pas 
sengers.  This  was  a  bucket  full  of  pebbles  of  in- 


76  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

viting  size  ;  and  the  man  said,  "  Now,  see  which 
can  hit  the  cliff.  It 's  farther  than  any  of  you 
can  throw,  though  it  looks  so  near." 

The  passengers  cast  themselves  upon  the  store 
of  missiles,  Colonel  Ellison  most  actively  among 
them.  None  struck  the  cliff,  and  suddenly  Mr. 
Arbuton  felt  a  blind,  stupid,  irresistible  longing  to 
try  his  chance.  The  spirit  of  his  college  days,  of 
his  boating  and  ball-playing  youth,  came  upon 
him.  He  picked  up  a  pebble,  while  Kitty  opened 
her  eyes  in  a  stare  of  dumb  surprise.  Then  he 
wheeled  and  threw  it,  and  as  it  struck  against  the 
cliff  with  a  shock  that  seemed  to  have  broken  all 
the  windows  on  the  Back  Bay,  he  exulted  in  a 
sense  of  freedom  the  havoc  caused  him.  It  was 
as  if  for  an  instant  he  had  rent  away  the  ties  of 
custom,  thrown  off  the  bonds  of  social  allegiance, 
broken  down  and  trampled  upon  the  conventions 
which  his  whole  life  long  he  had  held  so  dear  and 
respectable.  In  that  moment  of  frenzy  he  feared 
himself  capable  of  shaking  hands  with  the  shabby 
Englishman  in  the  Glengarry  cap,  or  of  asking  the 
whole  admiring  company  of  passengers  down  to 
the  bar.  A  cry  of  applause  had  broken  from  them 
at  his  achievement,  and  he  had  for  the  first  time 
tasted  the  sweets  of  popular  favor.  Of  course  a 
revulsion  must  come,  and  it  must  be  of  a  CO:TC- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  77 

spending  violence  ;  and  the  next  moment  Mr.  Ar- 
buton  hated  them  all,  and  most  of  all  Colonel 
Ellison,  who  had  been  loudest  in  his  praise.  Him 
he  thought  for  that  moment  everything  that  was 
aggressively  and  intrusively  vulgar.  But  he  could 
not  utter  these  friendly  impressions,  nor  is  it  so 
easy  to  withdraw  from  any  concession,  and  he 
found  it  impossible  to  repair  his  broken  defences. 
Destiny  had  been  against  him  from  the  beginning, 
and  now  why  should  he  not  strike  hands  with  it 
for  the  brief  half-day  that  he  was  to  continue  in 
these  people's  society  1  In  the  morning  he  would 
part  from  them  forever,  and  in  the  mean  time  why 
should  he  not  try  to  please  and  be  pleased  ?  There 
might,  to  be  sure,  have  been  many  reasons  why 
he  should  not  do  this  ;  but  however  the  balance 
stood  he  now  yielded  himself  passively  to  his  fate. 
He  was  polite  to  Mrs.  Ellison,  he  was  attentive  to 
Kitty,  and  as  far  as  he  could  he  entered  into  the 
fantastic  spirit  of  her  talk  with  the  colonel.  He 
was  not  a  dull  man  ;  he  had  quite  an  apt  wit  of 
his  own,  and  a  neat  way  of  saying  things ;  but 
humor  always  seemed  to  him  something  not  per 
fectly  well  bred  ;  of  course  he  helped  to  praise  it 
in  some  old-established  diner-out,  or  some  woman 
of  good  fashion,  whose  mots  it  was  customary  to 
repeat,  and  he  even  tolerated  it  in  books  ;  but  he 


78  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

was  at  a  loss  with  these  people,  who  looked  at  life 
in  so  bizarre  a  temper,  yet  without  airiness  or 
pretension,  nay,  with  a  whimsical  readiness  to 
acknowledge  kindred  in  every  droll  or  laughable 
thing. 

The  boat  stopped  at  Tadoussac  on  her  return, 
and  among  the  spectators  who  came  down  to  the 
landing  was  a  certain  very  pretty,  conscious-look 
ing,  silly,  bridal-faced  young  woman,  —  imaginably 
the  belle  of  the  season  at  that  forlorn  watering- 
place, —  who  before  coming  on  board  stood  awiiile 
attended  by  a  following  of  those  elderly  imperial 
and  colonial  British  who  heavily  flutter  round  the 
fair  at  such  resorts.  She  had  an  air  of  utterly 
satisfied  vanity,  in  which  there  was  no  harm  in  the 
world,  and  when  she  saw7  that  she  had  fixed  the 
eyes  of  the  shoreward-gazing  passengers,  it  ap 
peared  as  if  she  fell  into  a  happy  trepidation  too 
blissful  to  be  passively  borne  \  she  moistened  her 
pretty  red  lips  with  her  tongue,  she  twitched  her 
mantle,  she  settled  the  bowr  at  her  lovely  throat, 
she  bridled  and  tossed  her  graceful  head. 

"  What  should  you  do  next,  Kitty  1 "  asked  the 
colonel,  who  had  been  sympathetically  intent  upon 
all  this. 

"  0,  I  think  I  should  pat  my  foot,"  answered 
Kitty ;  and  in  fact  the  charming  simpleton  on 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  79 

shore,  having  perfected  her  attitude,  was  tapping 
the  ground  nervously  with  the"  toe  of  her  adorable 
slipper. 

After  the  boat  started,  a  Canadian  lady  of  ripe 
age,  yet  of  a  vivacity  not  to  be  reconciled  with  the 
notion  of  the  married  state,  capered  briskly  about 
among  her  somewhat  stolid  and  indifferent  friends, 
saying,  "  They  're  going  to  fire  it  as  soon  as  we 
round  the  point "  ;  and  presently  a  dull  boom,  as 
of  a  small  piece  of  ordnance  discharged  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  hotel,  struck  through  the  gath 
ering  fog,  and  this  elderly  sylph  clapped  her  hands 
and  exulted  :  "  They  've  fired  it,  they  've  fired  it ! 
and  now  the  captain  will  blow  the  whistle  in  an 
swer."  But  the  captain  did  nothing  of  the  kind, 
and  the  lady,  after  some  more  girlish  effervescence, 
upbraided  him  for  an  old  owl  and  an  old  muff,  and 
so  sank  into  such  a  flat  and  spiritless  calm  that 
she  was  sorrowful  to  see. 

"  Too  bad,  Mr.  Arbuton,  is  n't  it  1 "  said  the 
colonel ;  and  Mr.  Arbuton  listened  in  vague  doubt 
while  Kitty  built  up  with  her  cousin  a  touching 
romance  for  the  poor  lady,  supposed  to  have  spent 
the  one  brilliant  and  successful  summer  of  her  life 
at  Tadoussac,  where  her  admirers  had  agreed  to 
bemoan  her  loss  in  this  explosion  of  gunpowder. 
They  asked  him  if  he  did  not  wish  the  captain  had 


80  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

whistled  ;  and  "  Oil  !  "  shuddered  Kitty,  "  does  n't 
it  all  make  you  feefjust  as  if  you  had  been  doing 
it  yourself1?  "  —  a  question  which  he  hardly  knew 
how  to  answer,  never  having,  to  his  knowledge, 
done  a  ridiculous  thing  in  his  life,  much  less  been 
guilty  of  such  behavior  as  that  of  the  disappointed 
lady. 

At  Cacouna,  where  the  boat  stopped  to  take  on 
the  horses  and  carriages  of  some  home-returning 
sojourners,  the  pier  was  a  labyrinth  of  equipages 
of  many  sorts  and  sizes,  and  a  herd  of  bright- 
hooded,  gayly  blanketed  horses  gave  variety  to 
the  human  crowd  that  soaked  and  steamed  in  the 
fine,  slowly  falling  rain.  A  draught-horse  was 
every  three  minutes  driven  into  their  midst  with 
tedious  iteration  as  he  slowly  drew  baskets  of  coal 
up  from  the  sloop  unloading  at  the  wharf,  and  each 
time  they  closed  solidly  upon  his  retreat  as  if  they 
never  expected  to  see  that  horse  again  while  the 
wrorld  stood.  They  were  idle  ladies  and  gentle 
men  under  umbrellas,  Indians  and  habitans  taking 
the  rain  stolidly  erect  or  with  shrugged  shoulders, 
and  two  or  three  clergymen  of  the  curate  type, 
who  might  have  stepped  as  they  were  out  of  any 
dull  English  novel.  These  were  talking  in  low 
voices  and  putting  their  hands  to  their  ears  to 
catch  the  replies  of  the  lady-passengers  who  hung 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  81 

upon  the  rail,  and  twaddled  back  as  dryly  as  if 
there  was  no  moisture  in  life.  All  the  while  the 
safety-valves  hissed  with  the  escaping  steam,  and 
the  boat's  crew  silently  toiled  with  the  grooms 
of  the  different  horses  to  get  the  equipages  on 
board.  With  the  carriages  it  was  an  affair  of 
mere  muscle,  but  the  horses  required  to  be  man 
aged  with  brain.  No  sooner  had  one  of  them 
placed  his  fore  feet  on  the  gangway  plank  than  he 
protested  by  backing  up  over  a  mass  of  patient 
Canadians,  carrying  with  him  half  a  dozen  grooms 
and  deck-hands.  Then  his  hood  was  drawn  over 
his  eyes,  and  he  was  blindly  walked  up  and  down 
the  pier,  and  back  to  the  gangway,  which  he  knew 
as  soon  as  he  touched  it.  He  pulled,  he  pranced, 
he  shied,  he  did  all  that  a  bad  and  stubborn  horse 
can  do,  till  at  last  a  groom  mounted  his  back, 
a  clump  of  deck-hands  tugged  at  his  bridle,  and 
other  grooms,  tenderly  embracing  him  at  different 
points,  pushed,  and  he  was  thus  conveyed  on 
board  with  mingled  affection  and  ignominy.  None 
of  the  Canadians  seemed  amused  by  this ;  they  re 
garded  it  with  serious  composure  as  a  fitting  deco 
rum,  and  Mr.  Arbutou  had  no  comment  to  make 
upon  it.  But  at  the  first  embrace  bestowed  upon 
the  horse  by  the  grooms  the  colonel  said  absent 
ly,  "  Ah !  long-lost  brother,"  and  Kitty  laughed ; 
4*  F 


82  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

and  as  the  scruples  of  each  brute  were  successive 
ly  overcome,  she  helped  to  give  some  grotesque 
interpretation  to  the  various  scenes  of  the  melo 
drama,  while  Mr.  Arbuton  stood  beside  her,  and 
sheltered  her  with  his  umbrella ;  and  a  spice  of 
malice  in  her  heart  told  her  that  he  viewed  this 
drolling,  and  especially  her  part  in  it,  with  grave 
misgiving.  That  gave  the  zest  of  transgression  to 
her  excess,  mixed  with  dismay ;  for  the  tricksy 
spirit  in  her  was  not  a  domineering  spirit,  but  was 
easily  abashed  by  the  moods  of  others.  She  ought 
not  to  have  laughed  at  Dick's  speeches,  she  soon 
told  herself,  much  less  helped  him  on.  She  dread 
fully  feared  that  she  had  done  something  indeco 
rous,  and  she  wTas  pensive  and  silent  over  it  as  she 
moved  listlessly  about  after  supper ;  and  she  sat 
at  last  tj^nk^ng  in  a  dreary  sort  of  perplexity  on 
what  had  passed  during  the  day,  which  seemed  a 
long  one. 

The  shabby  Englishman  with  his  wife  and  sister 
were  walking  up  and  down  the  cabin.  By  and  by 
they  stopped,  and  sat  down  at  the  table  facing 
Kitty ;  the  elder  woman,  with  a  civil  freedom,  ad 
dressed  her  some  commonplace,  and  the  four  were 
presently  in  lively  talk;  for  Kitty  had  beamed 
upon  the  woman  in  return,  having  already  longed  to 
know  something  of  them.  The  world  was  so  fresh 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  83 

to  her,  that  she  could  find  delight  in  those  poor 
singing  or  acting  folk,  though  she  had  soon  to  own 
to  herself  that  .their  talk  was  not  very  witty  nor 
very  wise,  and  that  the  best  thing  about  them  was 
their  good-nature.  The  colonel  sat  at  the  end  of 
the  table  with  a  newspaper ;  Mrs.  Ellison  had  gone 
to  bed ;  and  Kitty  was  beginning  to  tire  of  her  new 
acquaintance,  and  to  wonder  how  she  could  get 
away  from  them,  when  she  saw  rescue  in  the  eye 
of  Mr.  Arbuton  as  he  came  down  tho  cabin.  She 
knew  he  was  looking  for  her;  she  saw  him  check 
himself  with  a  start  of  recognition ;  then  he  walked 
rapidly  by  the  group,  without  glancing  at  them. 

"  Brrrr  ! "  said  the  blond  girl,  drawing  her  blue 
knit  shawl  about  her  shoulders,  "  is  n't  it  cold?" 
and  she  and  her  friends  laughed. 

"  0  dear  !  "  thought  Kitty,  "  I  did  n't  suppose 
they  were  so  rude.  I'm  afraid  I  must  say  good 
night,"  she  added  aloud,  after  a  little,  and  stole 
away  the  most  conscience-stricken  creature  on  that 
boat.  She  heard  those  people  laugh  again  after 
she  left  them. 


84  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

IV. 

MR.  ARBUTON'S  INSPIRATION. 

HE  next  morning,  when  Mr.  Arbuton 
awoke,  he  found  a  clear  light  upon  the 
world  that  he  had  left  wrapped  in  fog  at 
midnight.  A  heavy  gale  was  blowing,  and  the 
wide  river  was  running  in  seas  that  made  the  boat 
stagger  in  her  course,  and  now  and  then  struck 
her  bows  with  a  force  that  sent  the  spray  from 
their  seething  tops  into  the  faces  of  the  people  on 
the  promenade.  The  sun,  out  of  rifts  of  the 
breaking  clouds,  launched  broad  splendors  across 
the  villages  and  farms  of  the  level  landscape  and 
the  crests  and  hollows  of  the  waves ;  and  a  cer 
tain  joy  of  the  air  penetrated  to  the  guarded 
consciousness  of  Mr.  Arbuton.  Involuntarily  he 
looked  about  for  the  people  he  meant  to  have 
nothing  more  to  do  with,  that  he  might  appeal  to 
the  sympathies  of  one  of  them,  at  least,  in  his 
sense  of  such  an  admirable  morning.  But  a  great 
many  passengers  had  come  on  board,  during  the 
night,  at  Murray  Bay,  where  the  brief  season  was 
ending,  and  their  number  hid  the  Ellisons  from 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  85 

him.  When  he  went  to  breakfast,  he  found  some 
one  had  taken  his  seat  near  them,  and  they  did 
not  notice  him  as  he  passed  by  in  search  of  another 
chair.  Kitty  and  the  colonel  were  at  table  alone, 
and  they  both  wore  preoccupied  faces.  After  break 
fast  he  sought  them  out  and  asked  for  Mrs. 
Ellison,  who  had  shared  in  most  of  the  excite 
ments  of  the  day  before,  helping  herself  about 
with  a  pretty  limp,  and  who  certainly  had  not,  as 
her  husband  phrased  it,  kept  any  of  the  meals 
waiting. 

"Why,"  said  the  colonel,  "I'm  afraid  her 
ankle  's  worse  this  morning,  and  that  we  '11  have 
to  lie  by  at  Quebec  for  a  few  days,  at  any  rate." 

Mr.  Arbuton  heard  this  sad  news  with  a  cheer 
ful  aspect  unaccountable  in  one  who  was  concerned 
at  Mrs.  Ellison's  misfortune.  He  smiled,  when  he 
ought  to  have  looked  pensive,  and  he  laughed  at 
the  colonel's  joke  when  the  latter  added,  "Of 
course,  this  is  a  great  hardship  for  my  cousin,  who 
hates  Quebec,  and  wants  to  get  home  to  Eriecreek 
as  soon  as  possible." 

Kitty  promised  to  bear  her  trials  with  firmness, 
and  Mr.  Arbuton  said,  not  very  consequently,  as 
she  thought,  "  I  had  been  planning  to  spend  a  few 
days  in  Quebec,  myself,  and  I  shall  have  the  op 
portunity  of  inquiring  about  Mrs.  Ellison's  con- 


86  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

valeseence.  In  fact,"  he  added,  turning  to  the 
colonel,  "  I  hope  you  '11  let  me  be  of  service  to  you 
in  getting  to  a  hotel." 

And  when  the  boat  landed,  Mr.  Arbuton  actually 
busied  himself  in  finding  a  carriage  and  putting 
the  various  Ellison  wraps  and  bags  into  it.  Then 
he  helped  to  support  Mrs.  Ellison  ashore,  and  to 
lift  her  to  the  best  place.  He  raised  his  hat,  and 
had  good-morning  on  his  tongue,  when  the  as 
tonished  colonel  called  out,  "  Why,  the  deuce ! 
You  're  going  to  ride  up  with  us  ! " 

Mr.  Arbuton  thought  he  had  better  get  another 
carriage  ;  he  should  incommode  Mrs.  Ellison  ;  but 
Mrs.  Ellison  protested  that  he  would  not  at  all  : 
and,  to  cut  the  matter  short,  he  mounted  to  the 
colonel's  side.  It  was  another  stroke  of  fate. 

At  the  hotel  they  found  a  line  of  people  reach 
ing  half-way  down  the  outer  steps  from  the  inside 
of  the  office. 

"  Hallo  !  what 's  this  1 "  asked  the  colonel  of 
the  last  man  in  the  queue. 

"0,  it 's  a  little  procession  to  the  hotel  register ! 
We  've  been  three  quarters  of  an  hour  in  passing 
a  given  point,"  said  the  man,  who  was  plainly  a 
fellow-citizen. 

"  And  have  n't  got  by  yet,"  said  the  colonel, 
taking  to  the  speaker.  "  Then  the  house  is  full  1 " 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  87 

"  Well,  no  ;  they  Lave  n't  begun  to  throw  them 
out  of  the  window." 

"  His  humor  is  degenerating,  Dick,"  said  Kitty  ; 
and  "  Had  n't  you  better  go  inside  and  inquire  1 " 
asked  Mrs.  Ellison.  It  was  part  of  the  Ellison 
travelling  joke  for  her  thus  to  prompt  the  colonel 
in  his  duty. 

"  I  'm  glad  you  mentioned  it,  Fanny.  I  was 
just  going  to  drive  off  in  despair."  The  colonel 
vanished  within  doors,  and  after  long  delay  came 
out  flushed,  but  not  with  triumph.  "  On  the  ex 
press  condition  that  I  have  ladies  with  me,  one  an 
invalid,  I  am  promised  a  room  on  the  fifth  floor 
some  time  during  the  day.  They  tell  me  the  other 
hotel  is  crammed  and  it 's  no  use  to  go  there." 

Mrs.  Ellison  was  ready  to  weep,  and  for  the  first 
time  since  her  accident  she  harbored  some  bitter 
ness  against  Mr.  Arbuton.  They  all  sat  silent,  and 
the  colonel  on  the  sidewalk  silently  wiped  his 
brow. 

Mr.  Arbuton,  in  the  poverty  of  his  invention, 
wondered  if  there  was  not  some  lodging-house 
where  they  could  find  shelter. 

"  Of  course  there  is,"  cried  Mrs.  Ellison,  beam 
ing  upon  her  hero,  and  calling  Kitty's  attention 
to  his  ingenuity  by  a  pressure  with  her  well  foot. 
"  Richard,  we  must  look  up  a  boarding-house." 


88  x  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Do  you  know  of  any  good  boarding-houses  1  " 
asked  the  colonel  of  the  driver,  mechanically. 

"  Plenty,"  answered  the  man. 

"  Well,  drive  us  to  twenty  or  thirty  first-class 
ones,"  commanded  the  colonel ;  and  the  search 
began. 

The  colonel  first  asked  prices  and  looked  at 
rooms,  and  if  he  pronounced  any  apartment  un 
suitable,  Kitty  was  despatched  by  Mrs.  Ellison  to 
view  it  and  refute  him.  As  often  as  she  confirmed 
him,  Mrs.  Ellison  was  sure  that  they  were  both 
too  fastidious,  and  they  never  turned  away  from  a 
door  but  they  closed  the  gates  of  paradise  upon 
that  afflicted  lady.  She  began  to  believe  that  they 
should  find  no  place  whatever,  when  at  last  they 
stopped  before  a  portal  so  unboarding-house-like  in 
all  outward  signs,  that  she  maintained  it  was  of  no 
use  to  ring,  and  imparted  so  much  of  her  distrust 
to  the  colonel  that,  after  ringing,  he  prefaced  his 
demand  for  rooms  with  an  apology  for  supposing 
that  there  were  rooms  to  let  there.  Then,  after 
looking  at  them,  he  returned  to  the  carriage  and 
reported  that  the  whole  affair  was  perfect,  and  that 
he  should  look  no  farther.  Mrs.  Ellison  replied 
that  she  never  could  trust  his  judgment,  he  was  so 
careless.  Kitty  inspected  the  premises,  and  came 
back  in  a  transport  that  alarmed  the  worst  fears 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  89 

of  Mrs.  Ellison.  She  was  sure  that  they  had  better 
look  farther,  she  knew  there  were  plenty  of  nicer 
places.  Even  if  the  rooms  were  nice  and  the  situ 
ation  pleasant,  she  was  certain  that  there  must  be 
some  drawbacks  which  they  did  not  know  of  yet. 
Whereupon  her  husband  lifted  her  from  the  car 
riage,  and  bore  her,  without  reply  or  comment  of 
any  kind,  into  the  house. 

Throughout  the  search  Mr.  Arbuton  had  been 
making  up  his  mind  that  he  would  part  with 
his  friends  as  soon  as  they  found  lodgings,  give 
the  day  to  Quebec,  and  take  the  evening  train 
for  Gorham,  thus  escaping  the  annoyances  of  a 
crowded  hotel,  and  ending  at  once  an  acquaint 
ance  which  he  ought  never  to  have  let  go  so  far. 
As  long  as  the  Ellisons  were  without  shelter,  he 
felt  that  it  was  due  to  himself  not  to  abandon 
them.  But  even  now  that  they  were  happily 
housed,  had  he  done  all  that  nobility  obliged  1  He 
stood  irresolute  beside  the  carriage. 

"  Won't  you  come  up  and  see  where  we  live  1 " 
asked  Kitty,  hospitably. 

"  I  shall  be  very  glad,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  the  colonel,  in  the  par 
lor,  "  I  did  n't  engage  a  room  for  you.  I  supposed 
you  'd  rather  take  your  chances  at  the  hotel." 

"  0,  I  'm  going  away  to-night." 


90  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

11  Why,  that 's  a  pity  !  " 

"  Yes,  I  've  no  fancy  for  a  cot-bed  in  the  hotel 
parlor.  But  I  don't  quite  like  to  leave  you  here, 
after  bringing  this  calamity  upon  you." 

"  0,  don't  mention  that !  I  was  the  only  one  to 
blame.  We  shall  get  on  splendidly  here." 

Mr.  Arbuton  suffered  a  vague  disappointment. 
At  the  bottom  of  his  heart  was  a  formless  hope  that 
he  might  in  some  way  be  necessary  to  the  Ellisons 
in  their  adversity ;  or  if  not  that,  then  that  some 
thing  might  entangle  him  further  and  compel  his 
stay.  But  they  seemed  quite  equal  in  themselves 
to  the  situation ;  they  were  in  far  more  comforta 
ble  quarters  than  they  could  have  hoped  for,  and 
plainly  should  want  Sbr  nothing ;  Fortune  put  on 
a  smiling  face,  and  bade  him  go  free  of  them.  He 
fancied  it  a  mocking  smile,  though,  as  he  stood  an 
instant  silently  weighing  one  thing  against  an 
other.  The  colonel  was  patiently  waiting  his  mo 
tion  ;  Mrs.  Ellison  sat  watching  him  from  the  sofa ; 
Kitty  moved  about  the  room  with  averted  face, 
—  a  pretty  domestic  presence,  a  household  priest 
ess  ordering  the  temporary  Penates.  Mr.  Arbuton 
opened  his  lips  to  say  farewell,  but  a  god  spoke 
through  them,  —  incousequently,  as  the  gods  for 
the  most  part  do,  saying,  "Besides,  I  suppose 
you  've  got  all  the  rooms  here." 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  91 

"  0,  as  to  that  I  don't  know,"  answered  the 
colonel,  not  recognizing  the  language  of  inspira 
tion,  "  let 's  ask."  Kitty  knocked  a  photograph- 
book  off  the  table,  and  Mrs.  Ellison  said,  "  Why, 
Kitty ! "  But  nothing  more  was  spoken  till  the 
landlady  came.  She  had  another  room,  but  doubted 
if  it  would  answer.  It  was  in  the  attic,  and  was  a 
back  room,  though  it  had  a  pleasant  outlook.  Mr. 
Arbuton  had  no  doubt  that  it  would  do  very  well 
for  the  day  or  two  he  was  going  to  stay,  and  took 
it  hastily,  without  going  to  look  at  it.  He  had  his 
valise  carried  up  at  once,  and  then  he  went  to  the 
post-office  to  see  if  he  had  any  letters,  offering  to 
ask  also  for  Colonel  Ellison. 

Kitty  stole  off  to  explore  the  chamber  given  her 
at  the  rear  of  the  house ;  that  is  to  say,  she 
opened  the  window  looking  out  on  what  their  host 
ess  told  her  was  the  garden  of  the  Ursuline  Con 
vent,  and  stood  there  in  a  mute  transport.  A 
black  cross  rose  in  the  midst,  and  all  about  this 
wandered  the  paths  and  alleys  of  the  garden, 
through  clumps  of  lilac-bushes  and  among  the 
spires  of  hollyhocks.  The  grounds  were  enclosed 
by  high  walls  in  part,  and  in  part  by  the  group  'of 
the  convent  edifices,  built  of  gray  stone,  high 
gabled,  and  topped  by  dormer-windowed  steep  roofs 
of  tin,  which,  under  the  high  morning  sun,  lay 


92  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

an  expanse  of  keenest  splendor,  while  many  a 
grateful  shadow  dappled  the  full-foliaged  garden 
below.  Two  slim,  tall  poplars  stood  against  the 
gable  of  the  chapel,  and  shot  their  tops  above  its 
roof,  and  under  a  porch  near  them  two  nuns  sat 
motionless  in  the  sun,  black-robed,  with  black  veils 
falling  over  their  shoulders,  and  their  white  faces 
lost  in  the  white  linen  that  draped  them  from 
breast  to  crown.  Their  hands  lay  qniet  in  their 
laps,  and  they  seemed  unconscious  of  the  other 
nuns  walking  in  the  garden-paths  with  little 
children,  their  pupils,  and  answering  their  laugh 
ter  from  time  to  time  with  voices  as  simple  and 
innocent  as  their  own.  Kitty  looked  down  upon 
them  all  with  a  swelling  heart.  They  were  but 
figures  in  a  beautiful  picture  of  something  old 
and  poetical;  but  she  loved  them,  and  pitied 
them,  and  was  most  happy  in  them,  the  same  as 
if  they  had  been  real.  It  could  not  be  that  they 
and  she  were  in  the  same  world  :  she  must  be 
dreaming  over  a  book  in  Charley's  room  at  Erie- 
creek.  She  shaded  her  eyes  for  a  better  look, 
when  the  noonday  gun  boomed  from  the  citadel ; 
the  bell  upon  the  chapel  jangled  harshly,  and  those 
strange  maskers,  those  quaint  black  birds  with 
white  breasts  and  faces,  flocked  indoors.  At  the 
same  time  a  small  dog  under  her  window  howled 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  93 

dolorously  at  the  jangling  of  the  bell ;  and  Kitty, 
with  an  impartial  joy,  turned  from  the  pensive 
romance  of  the  convent  garden  to  the  mild  com 
edy  of  the  scene  to  which  his  woful  note  attracted 
her.  When  he  had  uttered  his  anguish,  he  relapsed 
into  the  quietest  small  French  dog  that  ever  was, 
and  lay  down  near  a  large,  tranquil  cat,  whom  nei 
ther  the  bell  nor  he  had  been  able  to  stir  from  her 
slumbers  in  the  sun ;  a  peasant-like  old  man  kept 
on  sawing  wood,  and  a  little  child  stood  still  amidst 
the  larkspurs  and  marigolds  of  a  tiny  garden,  while 
over  the  flower-pots  on  the  low  window-sill  of  the 
neighboring  house  to  which  it  belonged,  a  young, 
motherly  face  gazed  peacefully  out.  The  great 
extent  of  the  convent  grounds  had  left  this  poor 
garden  scarce  breathing-space  for  its  humble 
blooms ;  with  the  low  paling  fence  that  separated 
it  from  the  adjoining  house-yards  it  looked  like  a 
toy-garden  or  the  background  of  a  puppet-show, 
and  in  its  way  it. was  as  quaintly  unreal  to  the 
young  girl  as  the  nunnery  itself. 

When  she  saw  it  first,  the  city's  walls  and  other 
warlike  ostentations  had  taken  her  imagination 
with  the  historic  grandeur  of  Quebec;  but  the 
fascination  deepened  now  that  she  was  admitted, 
as  it  were,  to  the  religious  heart  and  the  domestic 
privacy  of  the  famous  old  town.  She  was  roman- 


94  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

tic,  as  most  good  young  girls  are  ;  and  she  had  the 
same  pleasure  in  the  strangeness  of  the  things 
about  her  as  she  would  have  felt  in  the  keeping  of 
a  charming  story.  To  Fanny's  "  Well,  Kitty,  I  sup 
pose  all  this  just  suits  you,"  when  she  had  returned 
to  the  little  parlor  where  the  sufferer  lay,  she  an 
swered  with  a  sigh  of  irrepressible  content,  "0 
yes  !  could  anything  be  more  beautiful  1 "  and  her 
enraptured  eye  dwelt  upon  the  low  ceilings,  the 
deep,  wide  chimneys  eloquent  of  the  mighty  fires 
with  which  they  must  roar  in  winter,  the  French 
windows  with  their  curious  and  clumsy  fastenings, 
and  every  little  detail  that  made  the  place  alien 
and  precious. 

Fanny  broke  into  a  laugh  at  the  visionary  ab 
sence  in  her  face. 

"  Do  you  think  the  place  is  good  enough  for 
your  hero  and  heroine  1 "  asked  she,  slyly ;  for 
Kitty  had  one  of  those  family  reputes,  so  hard  to 
survive,  for  childish  attempts  of  her  own  in  the 
world  of  fiction  where  so  great  part  of  her  life  had 
been  passed ;  and  Mrs.  Ellison,  who  was  as  unlit- 
erary  a  soul  as  ever  breathed,  admired  her  with 
the  heartiness  which  unimaginative  people  often 
feel  for  their  idealizing  friends,  and  believed  that 
she  was  always  deep  in  the  mysteries  of  some  plot. 

"  0,  I  don't  know,"  Kitty  answered  with  a  little 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  95 

color,  "  about  heroes  and  heroines  ;  but  I  'd  like 
to  live  here,  myself.  Yes,"  she  continued,  rather 
to  herself  than  to  her  listener,  "  I  do  believe  this 
is  what  I  was  made  for.  I  Ve  always  wanted  to 
live  amongst  old  things,  in  a  stone  house  with  dor 
mer-windows.  Why,  there  is  n't  a  single  dormer- 
window  in  Eriecreek,  nor  even  a  brick  house,  let 
alone  a  stone  one.  0  yes,  indeed !  I  was  meant 
for  an  old  country." 

"  Well,  then,  Kitty,  I  don't  see  what  you  're  to 
do  but  to  marrv  East  and  live  East ;  or  else  find  a 
rich  husband,  and  get  him  to  take  you  to  Europe 
to  live." 

"  Yes  ;  or  get  him  to  come  and  live  in  Quebec. 
That  's  all  I  'd  ask,  and  he  need  n't  be  a  very  rich 
man,  for  that." 

"  Why,  you  poor  child,  what  sort  of  husband 
could  you  get  to  settle  down  in  this  dead  old 
place  ? " 

"  0,  I  suppose  some  kind  of  artist  or  literary 
man." 

This  was  not  Mrs.  Ellison's  notion  of  the  kind  of 
husband  who  was  to  realize  for  Kitty  her  fancy  for 
life  in  an  old  country ;  but  she  was  content  to  let 
the  matter  rest  for  the  present,  and,  in  a  serene 
thankfulness  to  the  power  that  had  brought  two 
marriageable  young  creatures  together  beneath  the 


96  A   CJiCtnce  Acquaintance. 

same  roof,  and  under  her  own  observance,  she  com 
posed  herself  among  the  sofa-cushions,  from  which 
she  meant  to  conduct  the  campaign  against  Mr. 
Arbuton  with  relentless  vigor. 

"Well/'  she  said,  "it  won't  be  fair  if  you  are 
not  happy  in  this  world,  Kitty,  you  ask  so  little  of 
it";  while  Kitty  turned  to  the  window  overlook 
ing  the  street,  and  lost  herself  in  the  drama  of  the 
passing  figures  bclo\v.  They  were  new,  and  yet 
oddly  familiar,  for  she  had  long  known  them  in  the 
realm  of  romance.  The  peasant-women  w.ho  went 
by,  in  hats  of  felt  or  straw,  some  on  foot  with 
baskets,  and  some  in  their  light  market-carts,  were 
all,  in  their  wrinkled  and  crooked  age  or  their 
fresh-faced,  strong-limbed  youth,  her  friends  since 
childhood  in  many  a  tale  of  France  or  Germany ; 
and  the  black-robed  priests,  who  mixed  with  the 
passers  on  the  narrow  wooden  sidewalk,  and 
now  and  then  courteously  gave  way,  or  lifted  their 
wide-rimmed  hats  in  a  grave,  smiling  salutation, 
were  more  recent  acquaintances,  but  not  less  inti 
mate.  They  were  out  of  old  romances  about  Italy 
and  Spain,  in  which  she  was  very  learned  ;  and 
this  butcher's  boy,  tilting  along  through  the  crowd 
with  a  half-staggering  run,  was  from  any  one  of 
Dickens's  stories,  and  she  divined  that  the  four- 
armed  wooden  trough  on  his  shoulder  was  tha 


97 

butcher's  trav.  which  figures  in  every  novelist's 
description  of  a  London  street-crowd.  There  were 
manv  other  types,  as  French  mothers  of  families 
with  market-baskets  on  their  arms;  very  pretty 
French  school-girls  with  books  under  tbeir  arms ; 
wild-looking  country  boys  with  red  raspberries  in 
birch-bark  measures  ;  and  quiet  gliding  nuns  with 
white  hoods  and  downcast  faces  :  each  of  whom 
she  unerringly  $4$£x34  t£  {in  aPPr°Priate  corner  L> 
of  her  world  of  unreality.  A  young,  mild-faced,  r 
spectacled  Anglican  curate  she  did  not  give  a 
moment's  pause,  but  rushed  him  instantly  through 
the  whole  series  of  Anthony  Trollope's  novels, 
which  dull  books,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  she  had  read, 
and  liked,  every  one ;  and  then  she->begaii  to  find 
various  people  astray  out  of  Thackeray.  The  trig 
corporal,  with  the  little  visorless  cap  worn  so 
jauntily,  the  light  stick  carried  in  one  hand,  and 
the  broad-sealed  official  document  in  the  other,  had 
also,  in  his  breast-pocket,  one  of  those  brief,  infre 
quent  missives  which  Lieutenant  Osborne  used  to 
send  to  poor  Amelia ;  a  tall,  awkward  officer  did 
duty  for  Major  Dobbin  :  and  when  a  very  pretty 
lady  driving  a  pony  carriage,  with  a  footman  in 
livery  on  the  little  perch  behind  her,  drew  rein 
beside  the  pavement,  and  a  handsome  young  cap 
tain  in  a  splendid  uniform  saluted  her  and  began 


98  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

talking  with  her  in  a  languid,  affected  way,  it  was 
Osborne  recreant  to  the  thought  of  his  betrothed, 
one  of  whose  tender  letters  he  kept  twirling  in  his 
fingers  while  he  talked. 

Most  of  the  peo'ple  whom  she  saw  passing  had 
letters  or  papers,  arid,  in  fact,  they  were  coming 
from  the  post-office,  where  the  noonday  mails  had 
just  been  opened.  So  she  went  on  turning  sub 
stance  into  shadow,  —  unless,  indeed,  flesh  and 
blood  is  the  illusion,  —  and,  as  I  am  bound  to  own, 
catching  at  very  slight  pretexts  in  many  cases 
for  the  exercise  of  her  sorcery,  when  her  eye  fell 
upon  a  gentleman  at  a  little  distance.  At  the 
same  moment  he  raised  his  eyes  from  a  letter  at 
which  he  had  been  glancing,  and  ran  them  along 
the  row  of  houses  opposite,  till  they  rested  on  the 
window  at  which  she  stood.  Then  he  smiled  and 
lifted  his  hat,  and,  with  a  start,  she  recognized  Mr. 
Arbuton,  while  a  certain  chill  struck  to  her  heart 
through  the  tumult  she  felt  there.  Till  he  saw 
her  there  had  been  such  a  cold  reserve  and  hau 
teur  in  his  bearing,  that  the  trepidation  which  she 
had  felt  about  him  at  times,  the  day  before,  and 
which  had  worn  quite  away  under  the  events  of 
the  morning,  was  renewed  again*  and  the  aspect, 
in  which  he  had  been  so  strange  that  she  did 
not  know  him,  seemed  the  only  one  that  he  had 


A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

ever  worn.  This  effect  lasted  till  Mr.  Arbutoii 
could  find  his  way  to  her,  and  place  in  her  eager 
hand  a  letter  from  the  girls  and  Dr.  Ellison. 
She  forgot  it  then,  and  vanished  till  she  read 
her  letter. 


100  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

V, 

MR.   ARBUTOX   MAKES   HIMSELF  AGREEABLE. 

HE  first  care  of  Colonel  Ellison  had  been 
to  call  a  doctor,  and  to  know  the  worst 
about  the  sprained  ankle,  upon  which  his 
plans  had  fallen  lame  ;  and  the  worst  was  that  it 
was  not  a  bad  sprain,  but  Mrs.  Ellison,  having  been 
careless  of  it  the  day  before,  had  aggravated  the 
hurt,  and  she  must  now  have  that  perfect  rest, 
which  physicians  prescribe  so  recklessly  of  other  in 
terests  and  duties,  for  a  week  at  least,  and  possibly 
two  or  three. 

The  colonel  was  still  too  much  a  soldier  to  be 
impatient  at  the  doctor's  order,  but  he  was  of  far 
too  active  a  temper  to  be  quiet  under  it.  He 
therefore  proposed  to  himself  nothing  less  than 
the  capture  of  Quebec  in  an  historical  sense,  and 
even  before  dinner  he  began  to  prepare  for  the 
campaign.  He  sallied  forth,  and  descended  upon 
the  bookstores  wherever  he  found  them  lurking, 
in  whatsoever  recess  of  the  Upper  or  Lower  Town, 
and  returned  home  laden  with  guide-books  to 
Quebec,  and  monographs  upon  episodes  of  local 


A   Change  A.' m'. 'tin'!' wet.' J.  - 

history,  such  as  are  produced  in  great  quantity  by 
the  semi-clerical  literary  taste  of  out-of-the-way 
Catholic  capitals.  The  colonel  (who  had  gone  ac 
tively  into  business,  after  leaving  the  army,  at  the 
close  of  the  war)  had  always  a  newspaper  some 
where  about  him,  but  he  was  not  a  reader  of  many 
books.  Of  the  volumes  in  the  doctor's  library,  he 
had  never  in  former  days  willingly  opened  any  but 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  and  Don  Quixote,  long 
passages  of  which  he  knew  by  heart.  He  had  some 
times  attempted  other  books,  but  for  the  most  of 
Kitty's  favorite  authors  he  professed  as  frank  a 
contempt  as  for  the  Mound-Builders  themselves. 
He  had  read  one  book  of  travel,  namely,  The 
Innocents  Abroad,  which  he  held  to  be  so  good  a 
book  that  he  need  never  read  anything  else  about 
the  countries  of  which  it  treated.  When  he  brought 
in  this  extraordinary  collection  of  pamphlets,  both 
Kitty  and  Fanny  knew  what  to  expect ;  for  the 
colonel  was  as  ready  to  receive  literature  at  second 
hand  as  to  avoid  its  original  sources.  He  had  in 
this  way  picked  up  a  great  deal  of  useful  knowl 
edge,  and  he  was  famous  for  clipping  from  news 
papers  scraps  of  instructive  fact,  all  of  which  he 
relentlessly  remembered.  He  had  already  a  fair 
outline  of  the  local  history  in  his  mind,  and  this 
had  been  deepened  and  freshened  by  Dr.  Ellison's  re- 


102       :  A   Chance .  Acquaintance. 

cent  talk  of  his  historical  studies.  Moreover,  he  had 
secured  in  the  course  of  the  present  journey,  from 
his  wife's  and  cousin's  reading  of  divers  guide-books, 
a  new  store  of  names  and  dates,  which  he  desired  to 
attach  to  the  proper  localities  with  their  help. 

"  Light  reading  for  leisure  hours,  Fanny,"  said 
Kitty,  looking  askance  at  the  colonel's  literature 
as  she  sat  down  near  her  cousin  after  dinner. 

"  Yes ;  and  you  start  fair,  ladies.  Start  with 
Jacques  Cartier,  ancient  mariner  of  Dieppe,  in  the 
year  1535.  No  favoritism  in  this  investigation ; 
no  bringing  forward  of  Chainplain  or  Montcalm 
prematurely  ;  no  running  off  on  subsequent  con 
quests  or  other  side-issues.  Stick  to  the  discovery, 
and  the  names  of  Jacques  Cartier  and  Donnacona. 
Come,  do  something  for  an  honest  living." 

"  Who  was  Donnacona  1 "  demanded  Mrs.  Elli 
son,  with  indifference. 

"  That  is  just  what  these  fascinating  little  vol 
umes  will  tell  us.  Kitty,  read  something  to  your 
suffering  cousins  about  Donnacona,  —  he  sounds 
uncommonly  like  an  Irishman,"  answered  the  col 
onel,  establishing  himself  in  an  easy-chair;  and 
Kitty  picked  up  a  small  sketch  of  the  history  of 
Quebec,  and,  opening  it,  fell  into  the  trance  which 
came  upon  her  at  the  touch  of  a  book,  and  read 
on  for  some  pages  to  herself. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  103 

"Well,  upon  my  word,"  said  the  colonel,  "I 
might  as  well  be  reading  about  Donnacona  myself, 
for  any  comfort  I  get." 

"  0  Dick,  1  forgot.  I  was  just  looking.  Now 
I  'm  really  going  to  commence." 

"  No,  not  yet,"  cried  Mrs.  Ellison,  rising  on  her 
elbow.  "  Where  is  Mr.  Arbuton  1 " 

"What  has  he  to  do  with  Donnacona,  my 
dear?" 

"  Everything.  You  know  he  's  stayed  on  our 
account,  and  I  iiever  heard  of  anything  so  impo 
lite,  so  inhospitable,  as  offering  to  .read  without 
him.  Go  and  call  him,  Richard,  do." 

"  0,  no,"  pleaded  Kitty,  "  he  won't  care  about 
it.  Don't  call  him,  Dick." 

"  Why,  Kitty,  I  'm  surprised  at  you  !  When 
you  read  so  beautifully  !  You  need  n't  be  ashamed, 
I  'm  sure." 

"  I  'm  not  ashamed  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  I 
don't  want  to  read  to  him." 

"  Well,  call  him  any  way,  colonel.  He  's  in  his 
room." 

"  If  you  do,"  said  Kitty,  with  superfluous  dig 
nity,  "  I  must  go  away." 

"  Very  well,  Kitty,  just  as  you  please.  Only  I 
want  Richard  to  witness  that  I  'm  not  to  blame  if 
Mr.  Arbuton  thinks  us  unfeeling  or  neglectful." 


104  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  0,  if  he  does  n't  say  what  he  thinks,  it  '11  make 
no  difference." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  a  good  deal  of  fuss 
to  make  about  one  human  being,  a  mere  passing 
man  and  brother  of  a  day,  is  n't  it  ? "  said  the 
colonel.  "  Go  on  with  Donnacona,  do." 

There  came  a  knock  at  the  door.  Kitty  leaped 
nervously  to  her  feet,  and  fled  out  of  the  room. 
But  it  was  only  the  little  French  serving-maid 
upon  some  errand  which  she  quickly  despatched. 

"  Well,  now  what  do  you  think  1 "  asked  Mrs- 
Ellison. 

"Why,  I  think  you've  a  surprising  knowledge 
of  French  for  one  who  studied  it  at  school.  Do 
you  suppose  she  understood  you  1 " 

"  0,  nonsense  !  You  know  I  mean  Kitty  and 
her  very  queer  behavior.  Richard,  if  you  moon  at 
me  in  that  stupid  way,"  she  continued,  "  I  shall 
certainly  end  in  an  insane  asylum.  Can't  you  see 
what 's  under  your  very  nose  1 " 

"  Yes,  I  can,  Fanny,"  answered  the  colonel,  "  if 
anything 's  there.  But  I  give  you  my  word,  I 
don't  know  any  more  than  millions  yet  unborn 
what  you  're  driving  at."  The  colonel  took  up  the 
book  which  Kitty  had  thrown  down,  and  went  to 
his  room  to  try  to  read  up  Donnacona  for  himself, 
while  his  wife  penitently  turned  to  a  pamphlet  in 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  105 

French,  which  he  had  bought  with  the  others. 
"  After  all,"  she  thought,  "  men  will  be  men  "  ; 
and  seemed  not  to  find  the  fact  wholly  wanting  in 
consolation. 

A  few  minutes  after  there  was  a  murmur  of 
voices  in  the  entry  without,  at  a  window  looking 
upon  the  convent  garden,  where  it  happened  to 
Mr.  Arbuton,  descending  from  his  attic  chamber, 
to  find  Kitty  standing,  a  pretty  shape  against  the 
reflected  light  of  the  convent  roofs,  and  amidst  a 
little  greenery  of  house-plants,  tall  geraniums,  an 
overarching  ivy,  some  delicate  roses.  She  had 
paused  there,  on  her  way  from  Fanny's  to  her  own 
room,  and  was  looking  into  the  garden,  where  a 
pair  of  silent  nuns  were  pacing  up  and  down  the 
paths,  turning  now  their  backs  with  the  heavy 
sable  coiffure  sweeping  their  black  robes,  and  now 
their  still,  mask-like  faces,  set  in  that  stiff  frame 
work  of  white  linen.  Sometimes  they  came  so 
near  that  she  could  distinguish  their  features,  and 
imagine  an  expression  that  she  should  know  if  she 
saw  them  again  ;  and  while  she  stood  self-forget- 
fully  feigning  a  character  for  each  of  them,  Mr. 
Arbuton  spoke  to  her  and  took  his  place  at  her 
side. 

"  We  're  remarkably  favored  in  having  this  bit 
of  opera  under  our  windows.  Miss  Ellison,"  he 


106  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

said,  and  smiled  as  Kitty  answered,  "  0,  is  it  really 
like  an  opera  1  I  never  saw  one,  but  I  could 
imagine  it  must  be  beautiful,"  and  they  both 
looked  on  in  silence  a  moment,  while  the  nuns 
moved,  shadow-like,  out  of  the  garden,  and  left  it 
empty. 

Then  Mr.  Arbuton  said  something  to  which 
Kitty  answered  simply,  "  I  '11  see  if  my  cousin 
does  n't  want  me,"  and  presently  stood  beside  Mrs. 
Ellison's  sofa,  a  little  conscious  in  color.  "  Fanny, 
Mr.  Arbuton  has  asked  me  to  go  and  see  the 
cathedral  with  him.  Do  you  think  it  would  be 
right  ] " 

Mrs.  Ellison's  triumphant  heart  rose  to  her  lips. 
"  Why,  you  dear,  particular,  innocent  little  goose," 
she  cried,  flinging  her  arms  about  Kitty,  and  kiss 
ing  her  till  the  young  girl  blushed  again  ;  "  of 
course  it  would  !  Go  !  You  must  n't  stay  mewed 
up  in  here.  /  sha'  n't  be  able  to  go  about  with 
you  ;  and  if  I  can  judge  by  the  colonel's  l/reathiny, 
as  he  calls  it,  from  the  room  in  there,  he  won't,  at 
present.  But  the  idea  of  your  having  a  question 
of  propriety  !  "  And  indeed  it  was  the  first  time 
Kitty  had  ever  had  such  a  thing,  and  the  remem 
brance  of  it  put  a  kind  of  constraint  upon  her,  as 
she  strolled  demurely  beside  Mr.  Arbutou  towards 
the  cathedral. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  107 

"  Yon  must  be  guide,"  said  lie,  "  for  this  is  my 
first  day  in  Quebec,  you  know,  and  you  are  an  old 
inhabitant  in  comparison." 

"  I  '11  show  the  way,"  she  answered,  "  if  you  '11 
interpret  the  sights.  I  think  I  must  be  stranger 
to  them  than  you,  in  spite  of  my  long  residence. 
Sometimes  I  'm  afraid  that  I  do  only  fancy  I  enjoy 
these  things,  as  Mrs.  March  said,  for  I  've  no 
European  experiences  to  contrast  them  with.  I 
know  that  it  seems  very  delightful,  though,  and 
quite  like  what  I  should  expect  in  Europe." 

"  You  'd  expect  very  little  of  Europe,  then,  in 
most  things ;  though  there 's  no  disputing  that 
it 's  a  very  pretty  illusion  of  the  Old  World." 

A  few  steps  had  brought  them  into  the  market- 
square  in  front  of  the  cathedral,  where  a  little 
belated  traffic  still  lingered  in  the  few  old  peasant- 
women  hovering  over  baskets  of  such  fruits  and 
vegetables  as  had  long  been  out  of  season  in  the 
States,  and  the  housekeepers  and  serving-maids 
cheapening  these  wares.  A  sentry  moved  me 
chanically  up  and  down  before  the  high  portal  of 
the  Jesuit  Barracks,  over  the  arch  of  which  were 
still  the  letters  I.  H.  S.  carved  long  ago  upon  the 
keystone  ;  and  the  ancient  edifice  itself,  with  its 
yellow  stucco  front  and  its  grated  windows,  had 
every  right  to  be  a  monastery  turned  barracks  in 


108  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

France  or  Italy.  A  row  of  quaint  stone  houses  — 
inns  and  shops  —  formed  the  upper  side  of  the 
Square ;  while  the  modern  buildings  of  the  Hue 
Fabrique  on  the  lower  side  might  serve  very  well 
for  that  show  of  improvement  which  deepens  the 
sentiment  of  the  neighboring  antiquity  and  decay 
in  Latin  towns.  As  for  the  cathedral,  which  faced 
the  convent  from  across  the  Square,  it  was  as  cold 
and  torpid  a  bit  of  Renaissance  as  could  be  found 
in  Rome  itself.  A  red-coated  soldier  or  two  passed 
through  the  Square ;  three  or  four  neat  little 
French  policemen  lounged  about  in  blue  uniforms 
and  flaring  havelocks  ;  some  walnut-faced,  blue- 
eyed  old  citizens  and  peasants  sat  upon  the  thresh 
olds  of  the  row  of  old  houses,  and  gazed  dreamily 
through  the  smoke  of  their  pipes  at  the  slight  stir 
and  glitter  of  shopping  about  the  fine  stores  of  the 
Rue  Fabrique.  An  air  of  serene  disoccupation 
pervaded  the  place,  with  which  the  occasional  riot 
of  the  drivers  of  the  long  row  of  calashes  and 
carriages  in  front  of  the  cathedral  did  not  discord. 
Whenever  a  stray  American  wandered  into  the 
Square,  there  was  a  wild  flight  of  these  drivers 
towards  him,  and  his  person  was  lost  to  sight 
amidst  their  pantomime.  They  did  not  try  to 
underbid  each  other,  and  they  were  perfectly  good- 
humored  ;  as  soon  as  he  had  made  his  choice,  the 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  109 

rejected  multitude  returned  to  their  places  on  the 
curbstone,  pursuing  the  successful  aspirant  with 
inscrutable  jokes  as  he  drove  off,  while  the  horses 
went  on  munching  the  contents  of  their  leathern 
head-bags,  and  tossing  them  into  the  air  to  shake 
down  the  lurking  grains  of  corn. 

"  It  is  like  Europe  ;  your  friends  were  right," 
said  Mr.  Arbuton  as  they  escaped  into  the  cathe 
dral  from  one  of  these  friendly  onsets.  "  It  's 
quite  the  atmosphere  of  foreign  travel,  and  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  realize  the  feelings  of  a 
tourist." 

A  priest  was  saying  mass  at  one  of  the  side- 
altars,  assisted  by  acolytes  in  their  every-day 
clothes  ;  and  outside  of  the  railing  a  market- 
woman,  with  a  basket  of  choke-cherries,  knelt 
among  a  few  other  poor  people.  Presently  a 
young  English  couple  came  in,  he  with  a  dashing 
India  scarf  about  his.  hat,  and  she  very  stylishly 
dressed,  who  also  made  their  genuflections  with 
the  rest,  and  then  sat  down  and  dropped  their 
heads  in  prayer. 

"  This  is  like  enough  Europe,  too,"  murmured 
Mr.  Arbuton.  "  It  's  very  good  North  Italy  ;  or 
South,  for  the  matter  of  that." 

"0,  is  it]"  answered  Kitty,  joyously.  "I 
thought  it  must  be  ! "  And  she  added,  in  that 


110  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

trustful  way  of  hers  :  "  It  's  all  very  familiar ;  but 
then  it  seems  to  me  on  this  journey  that  I  've 
seen  a  great  many  things  that  I  know  I  've  only 
read  of  before  " ;  and  so  followed  Mr.  Arbuton  in 
his  tour  of  the  pictures. 

She  was  as  ignorant  of  art  as  any  Roman  or 
Florentine  girl  whose  life  has  been  passed  in  the 
midst  of  it ;  and  she  believed  these  mighty  fine 
pictures,  and  was  puz^Jed  by  Mr.  Arbuton's  be 
havior  towards  them,  who  was  too  little  imagina 
tive  or  too  conscientious  to  make  merit  for  them 
out  of  the  things  they  suggested.  He  treated  the 
poor  altar-pieces  of  the  Quebec  cathedral  with  the 
same  harsh  indifference  he  would  have  shown  to 
the  second-rate  paintings  of  a  European  gallery ; 
doubted  the  Vandyck,  and  cared  nothing  for  the 
Conception,  "hi  the  style  of  Le  Brim,"  over  the 
high-altar,  though  it  had  the  historical  interest  of 
having  survived  that  bombardment  of  1759  which 
destroyed  the  church. 

Kitty  innocently  singled  out  the  worst  picture 
in  the  place  as  her  favorite,  and  then  was  piqued, 
and  presently  frightened,  at  his  cold  reluctance 
about  it.  He  made  her  feel  that  it  was  very  bad, 
and  that  she  shared  its  inferiority,  though  he  said 
nothing  to  that  effect.  She  learned  the  shame  of 
not  being  a  connoisseur  in  a  connoisseur's  com- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  Ill 

pany,  and  she  perceived  more  painfully  than  ever 
before  that  a  Bostonian,  who  had  been  much  in 
Europe,  might  be  very  uncomfortable  to  the  sim 
ple,  untravelled  American.  Yet,  she  |r|mm<|e3| 
herself,  the  Marches  had  been  in  Europe,  and 
they  were  Bostonians  also ;  and  they  did  not  go 
about  putting  everything  under  foot ;  they  seemed  A 
to  care  for  everything  they  saw,  and  to  have  a 
friendly  jest,  if  not  praises,  for  it.  She  liked 
that ;  she  would  have  been  well  enough  pleased 
to  have  Mr.  Arbuton  laugh  outright  at  her  pic 
ture,  and  she  could  have  joined  him  in  it.  But 
the  look,  however  nattered  into  an  air  of  polite 
question  at  last,  which  he  had  bent  upon  her, 
seemed  to  outlaw  her  and  condemn  her  taste  in 
everything.  As  they  passed  out  of  the  cathedral, 
she  would  rather  have  gone  home  than  continued 
the  walk  as  he  begged  her,  if  she  were  not  tired,  to 
do ;  but  this  would  have  been  flight,  and  she  was 
not  a  coward.  So  they  sauntered  down  the  Rue 
Fabrique,  and  turned  into  Palace  Street.  As  they 
went  by  the  door  of  Hotel  Musty,  her  pleasant 
friends  came  again  into  her  mind,  and  she  said, 
"  This  is  where  we  stayed  last  week,  with  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  March." 

"  Those  Boston  people  ] " 

"  Yes." 


112  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Do  yon  know  where  they  live  in  Boston  1 " 

"  Why,  we  have  their  address  ;  but  I  can't  think 
of  it.  I  believe  somewhere  in  the  southern  part  of 
the  city  —  " 

.''The  South  End?" 

"  0  yes,  that  's  it.  Have  you  ever  heard  of 
them  1 " 

"  No." 

"I  thought  perhaps  you  might  have  known  Mr. 
March.  He  's  in  the  insurance  business  — 

"0  no  !  No,  I  don't  know  him,"  said  Mr.  Ar- 
buton,  eagerly.  Kitty jv^Dn^ered^f  there  could  be 
anything  wrong  with  the  business  repute  of  Mr. 
March,  but  dismissed  the  thought  as  unworthy ; 
and  having  perceivecT  that  her  friends  were 
snubbed,  she  said  bravely,  that  they  were  the 
most  delightful  people  she  had  ever  seen,  and  she 
was  sorry  that  they  were  not  still  in  Quebec.  He 
shared  her  regret  tacitly,  if  at  all,  and  they  walked 
in  silence  to  the  gate,  whence  they  strolled  down 
the  winding  street  outside  the  wall  into  the  Lower 
Town.  But  it  was  not  a  pleasant  ramble  for  Kitty  : 
she  was  in  a  dim  dread  of  hitherto  unseen  and  un- 
imagined  trespasses  against  good  taste,  not  only  in 
pictures  and  people,  but  in  all  life,  which,  from 
having  been  a  very  smiling  prospect  when  she  set 
out  with  Mr.  Arbuton,  had  suddenly  become  a 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  113 

narrow  pathway,  in  which  one  must  pick  one's  way 
with  more  regard  to  each  step  than  any  general 
end.  All  this  was  as  obscure  and  uncertain  as  the 
intimations  which  had  produced  it,  and  which,  in 
words,  had  really  amounted  to  nothing.  But  she 
felt  more  and  more  that  in  her  companion  there 
was  something  wholly  alien  to  the  influences  which 
had  shaped  her;  and  though  she  could  not  know 
how  much,  she  was  sure  of  enough  to  make  her 
dreary  in  his  presence. 

They  wandered  through  the  quaintness  and 
noiseless  bustle  of  the  Lower  Town  thoroughfares, 
and  came  by  and  by  to  that  old  church,  the  oldest 
in  Quebec,  which  was  built  near  two  hundred 
years  ago,  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow  made  at  the  re 
pulse  of  Sir  William  Phipps's  attack  upon  the  city, 
and  further  famed  for  the  prophecy  of  a  nun,  that 
this  church  should  be  ruined  by  the  fire  in  which  a 
successful  attempt  of  the  English  was  yet  to  in 
volve  the  Lower  Town.  A  painting,  which  repre 
sented  the  vision  of  the  nun,  perished  in  the  con 
flagration  which  verified  it,  in  1759;  but  the  walls 
of  the  ancient  structure  remain  to  witness  this  sin 
gular  piece  of  history,  which  Kitty  now  glanced  at 
furtively  in  one  of  the  colonel's  guide-books  ;  since 
her  ill-fortune  with  the  picture  in  the  cathedral,  she 
had  not  openly  cared  for  anything. 


114  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

At  one  side  of  the  church  there  was  a  booth  for 
the  sale  of  crockery  and  tin  ware ;  and  there  was 
an  every-day  cheerfulness  of  small  business  in  the 
shops  and  tented  stands  about  the  square  on  which 
the  church  faced,  and  through  which  there  was 
continual  passing  of  heavy  burdens  from  the  port, 
swift  calashes,  and  slow,  country-paced  market- 
carts. 

Mr.  Arbuton  made  no  motion  to  enter  the 
church,  and  Kitty  would  not  hint  the  curiosity  she 
felt  to  see  the  interior;  and  while  they  lingered  a 
moment,  the  door  opened,  and  a  peasant  came  out 
with  a  little  coffin  in  his  arms.  His  eyes  were  dim 
and  his  face  wet  with  weeping,  and  he  bore  the 
little  coffin  tenderly,  as  if  his  caress  might  reach 
the  dead  child  within.  Behind  him  she  came 
who  must  be  the  mother,  her  face  deeply  hidden 
in  her  veil.  Beside  the  pavement  waited  a  shabby- 
calash,  with  a  driver  half  asleep  on  his  perch  ;  and 
the  man,  still  clasping  his  precious  burden,  clam 
bered  into  the  vehicle,  and  laid  it  upon  his  knees, 
while  the  woman  groped,  through  her  tears  and 
veil,  for  the  step.  Kitty  and  her  companion  had 
moved  reverently  aside ;  but  now  Mr.  Arbuton 
came  forward,  and  helped  the  woman  to  her  place. 
She  gave  him  a  hoarse,  sad  "  Merci  !  "  and  spread 
a  fold  of  her  shawl  fondly  over  the  end  of  the  little 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  115 

coffin;   the  drowsy  driver  whipped  up  his  beast, 
and  the  calash  jolted  away. 

Kitty  cast  a  grateful  glance  upon  Mr.  Arbuton, 
as  they  now  entered  the  church,  by  a  common  im 
pulse.  On  their  way  towards  the  high-altar  they 
passed  the  rude  black  bier,  with  the  tallow  candles 
yet  smoking  in  their  black  wooden  candlesticks.  A 
few  worshippers  were  dropped  here  and  there  in 
the  vacant  seats,  and  at  a  principal  side-altar  knelt 
a  poor  woman  praying  before  a  wooden  effigy  of 
the  dead  Christ  that  lay  in  a  glass  case  under  the 
altar.  The  image  was  of  life-size,  and  was  painted 
to  represent  life,  or  rather  death,  with  false  hair 
and  beard,  and  with  the  muslin  drapery  managed 
to  expose  the  stigmata  :  it  was  stretched  upon  a 
bed  strewn  with  artificial  flowers;  and  it  was 
dreadful.  But  the  poor  soul  at  her  devotions 
there  prayed  to  it  in  an  ecstasy  of  supplication, 
flinging  her  arms  asunder  with  imploring  gesture, 
clasping  her  hands  and  bowing  her  head  upon 
them,  while  her  person  swayed  from  side  to  side 
in  the  abandon  of  her  prayer.  Who  could  she  be, 
and  what  was  her  mighty  need  of  blessing  or  for 
giveness  ?  As  her  wont  was,  Kitty  threw  her  own 
soul  into  the  imagined  case  of  the  suppliant,  the 
tragedy  of  her  desire  or  sorrow.  Yet,  like  all  who 
suffer  sympathetically,  she  was  not  without  conso- 


116  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

lations  unknown  to  the  principal ;  and  the  waning 
afternoon,  as  it  lit  up  the  conventional  ugliness  of 
the  old  church,  and  the  paraphernalia  of  its  wor 
ship,  relieved  her  emotional  self-abandon  with  a 
remote  sense  of  content,  so  that  it  may  have  been 
a  jealousy  for  the  integrity  of  her  own  revery,  as 
well  as  a  feeling  for  the  poor  woman,  that  made 
her  tremble  lest  Mr.  Arbuton  should  in  some  way 
disparage  the  spectacle.  I  suppose  that  her  inter 
est  in  it  was  more  an  aesthetic  than  a  spiritual 
one ;  it  embodied  to  her  sight  many  a  scene  of 
penitence  that  had  played  before  her  fancy,  and 
I  do  not  know  but  she  would  have  been  willing  to 
have  the  suppliant  guilty  of  some  dreadful  mis 
deed,  rather  than  eating  meat  last  Friday,  which 
was  probably  her  sin.  However  it  was,  the  ancient 
crone  before  that  ghastly  idol  was  precious  to  her, 
and  it  seemed  too  great  a  favor,  when  at  last  the 
suppliant  wiped  her  eyes,  rose  trembling  from  her 
knees,  and  approaching  Kitty,  stretched  towards 
her  a  shaking  palm  for  charity. 

It  was  a  touch  that  transfigured  all,  and  gave 
even  Mr.  Arbuton 's  neutrality  a  light  of  ideal 
character.  He  bestowed  the  alms  craved  of  him 
in  turn,  he  did  not  repulse  the  beldame's  blessing ; 
and  Kitty,  who  was  already  moved  by  his  kindness 
to  that  poor  mourner  at  the  door,  forgot  that  the 


A  C fiance  Acquaintance.  117 

earlier  part  of  their  walk  had  beeu  so  miserable, 
and  climbed  back  to  the  Upper  Town  through  the 
Prescott  Gate  in  greater  gayety  than  she  had  yet 
known  that  day  in  his  company.  I  think  he  had 
not  done  much  to  make  her  cheerful ;  but  it  is 
one  of  the  advantages  of  a  temperament  like  his, 
that  very  little  is  expected  of  it,  and  that  it  can 
more  easily  than  any  other  make  the  human  heart 
glad  ;  at  the  least  softening  in  it,  the  soul  frolics 
with  a  craven  lightsomeness.  For  this  reason 
Kitty  was  able  to  enjoy  with  novel  satisfaction  the 
picturesqueness  of  Mountain  Street,  and  they  both 
admired  the  huge  shoulder  of  rock  near  the  gate, 
with  its  poplars  atop,  and  the  battery  at  the  brink, 
with  the  muzzles  of  the  guns  thrust  forward  against 
the  sky.  She  could  not  move  him  to  her  pleasure 
in  the  grotesqueness  of  the  circus-bills  plastered 
half-way  up  the  rock  ;  but  he  tolerated  the  levity 
with  which  she  commented  on  them,  and  her  light 
sallies  upon  passing  things,  and  he  said  nothing  to 
prevent  her  reaching  home  in  serene  satisfaction. 

"  Well,  Kitty,"  said  the  tenant  of  the  sofa,  as 
Kitty  and  the  colonel  drew  up  to  the  table  on 
which  the  tea  was  laid  at  the  sofa-side,  "  you  've 
had  a  nice  walk,  have  n't  you  ] " 

"  0  yes,  very  nice.  That  is,  the  first  part  of  it 
was  n't  very  nice  ;  but  after  a  while  we  reached 


118  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

an  old  church  in  the  Lower  Town,  —  which  was 
very  interesting,  —  and  then  we  appeared  to  cheer 
up  and  take  a  new  start." 

"  WelJ,"  asked  the  colonel,  "  what  did  you  find 
so  interesting  at  that  old  church  1 " 

"  Why,  there  was  a  baby's  funeral ;  and  an  old 
woman,  perfectly  crushed  by  some  trouble  or  other, 
praying  before  an  altar,  and  — 

"  It  seems  to  take  very  little  to  cheer  you  up," 
said  the  colonel.  "  All  you  ask  of  your  fellow- 
beings  is  a  heart-breaking  bereavement  and  a 
religious  agony,  and  you  are  lively  at  once.  Some 
people  might  require  human  sacrifices,  but  you 
don't." 

Kitty  looked  at  her  cousin  a  moment  with  vague 
amaze.  The  grossness  of  the  absurdity  flashed 
upon  her,  and  she  felt  as  if  another  touch  must 
bring  the  tears.  She  said  nothing ;  but  Mrs.  Elli 
son,  who  saw  only  that  she  was  cut  off  from  her 
heart's  desire  of  gossip,  came  to  the  rescue. 

"  Don't  answer  a  word,  Kitty,  not  a  single 
word  ;  I  never  heard  anything  more  insulting  from 
one  cousin  to  another ;  and  I  should  say  it,  if  I 
was  brought  into  a  court  of  justice. 

A  sudden  burst  of  laughter  from  Kitty,  who  hid 
her  conscious  face  in  her  hands,  interrupted  Mrs. 
Ellison's  defence. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  119 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison,  piqued  at  her  de 
sertion,  "  I  hope  you  understand  yourselves. 
/  don't."  This  was  Mrs.  Ellison's  attitude  to 
wards  her  husband's  whole  family,  who  oh  their 
part  never  had  been  able  to  account  for  the  col 
onel's  choice  except  as  a  joke,  and  sometimes 
questioned  if  he  had  not  perhaps  carried  the  joke 
too  far ;  though  they  loved  her  too,  for  a  kind  of 
passionate  generosity  and  sublime,  inconsequent 
unselfishness  about  her. 

"  What  I  want  to  know,  now"  said  the  colonel, 
as  soon  as  Kitty  would  let  him,  "and  I  '11  try  to 
put  it  as  politely  as  I  can,  is  simply  this  :  what 
made  the  first  part  of  your  walk  so  disagreeable  ] 
You  did  n't  see  a  wedding-party,  or  a  chi\d  rescued 
from  a  horrible  death,  or  a  man  saved  from  drown 
ing,  or  anything  of  that  kind,  did  you?" 

But  the  colonel  would  have  done  better  not  to 
say  anything.  His  wife  was  made  peevish  by  his 
persistence,  and  the  loss  of  the  harmless  pleasure 
upon  which  she  had  counted  in  the  history  of 
Kitty's  walk  with  Mr.  Arbuton.  Kitty  herself 
would  not  laugh  again ;  in  fact  she  grew  serious 
and  thoughtful,  and  presently  took  up  a  book,  and 
after  that  went  to  her  own  room,  where  she  stood 
awhile  at  her  window,  and  looked  out  on  the 
garden  of  the  Ursulines.  The  moon  hung  full  orb 


120  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

in  the  stainless  heaven,  and  deepened  the  mystery 
of  the  paths  and  trees,  and  lit  the  silvery  roofs  and 
chimneys  of  the  convent  with  tender  effulgence.  A 
wandering  odor  of  leaf  and  flower  stole  up  from  the 
garden,  but  she  perceived  the  sweetness,  like  the 
splendor,  with  veiled  senses.  She  was  turning 
over  in  her  thougjit  the  incidents  of  her  walk,  aricl 
trying  to  make  out  if  anything  had  really  hap 
pened,  first  to  provoke  her  against  Mr.  Arbuton, 
and  then  to  reconcile  her  to  him.  Had  he  said  or 
done  anything  about  her  favorite  painting  (which 
she  hated  now),  or  the  Marches,  to  offend  her  1  Or 
if  it  had  been  his  tone  and  manner,  was  his  after- 
conduct  at  the  old  church  sufficient  penance  ] 
What  was  it  he  had  done  that  common  humanity 
did  not  require  1  Was  he  so  very  superior  to  com 
mon  humanity,  that  she  should  meekly  rejoice  at 
his  kindness  to  the  afflicted  mother  1  Why  need 
she  have  cared  for  his  forbearance  toward  the  rapt 
devotee  1  She  became  aware  that  she  was  ridicu 
lous.  "  Dick  was  right,"  she  confessed,  "  and  I  will 
not  let  myself  be  made  a  goose  of"  ;  and  when  the 
bugle  at  the  citadel  called  the  soldiers  to  rest,  and 
the  harsh  chapel-bell  bade  the  nuns  go  dream  of 
heaven,  she  also  fell  asleep,  a  smile  on  her  lips  and 
a  light  heart  in  her  breast. 


-1   Citaiice  Acquaintance.  121 

VL 

A  LETTER  OF  KITTY'S. 

QUEBEC,  August  — ,  1870. 
GIRLS:  Since  the  letter  I  wrote 
you  a  day  or  two  after  we  got  here,  we 
have  been  going  on  very  much  as  you 
might  have  expected.  A  whole  week  has  passed, 
but  we  still  bear  our  enforced  leisure  with  forti 
tude  ;  and,  though  Boston  and  New  York  are  both 
fading  into  the  improbable  (as  far  as  we  are  con 
cerned),  Quebec  continues  inexhaustible,  and  I 
don't  begrudge  a  moment  of  the  time  we  are  giv 
ing  it. 

Fanny  still  keeps  her  sofa  ;  the  first  enthusiasm 
of  her  affliction  has  worn  away,  and  she  has  noth 
ing  to  sustain  her  now  but  planning  our  expedi 
tions  about  the  city.  She  has  got  the  map  and 
the  history  of  Quebec  by  heart,  and  she  holds  us 
to  the  literal  fulfilment  of  her  instructions.  On 
this  account,  she  often  has  to  send  Dick  and  me 
out  together  when  she  would  like  to  keep  him  with 
her,  for  she  won't  trust  either  of  us  alone,  and 
when  we  come  back  she  examines  us  separately 


122  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

to  sec  whether  we  have  skipped  anything.  This 
makes  us  faithful  in  the  smallest  things.  She  says 
she  is- determined  that  Unele  Jack  shall  have  a  full 
and  circumstantial  report  from  me  of  all  that  he 
wants  to  know  about  the  celebrated  places  here, 
and  I  really  think  he  will,  if  I  go  on,  or  am  goaded 
on,  in  this  way.  It 's  pure  devotion  to  the  cause 
in  Fanny,  for  you  know  she  does  n't  care  for  such 
things  herself,  and  has  no  pleasure  in  it  but  carry 
ing  a  point.  Her  chief  consolation  under  her  trial 
of  keeping  still  is  to  see  how  I  look  in  her  different 
dresses.  She  sighs  over  me  as  I  appear  in  a  new 
garment,  and  says,  0,  if  she  only  had  the  dressing 
of  me  !  Then  she  gets  up  and  limps  and  hops 
across  the  room  to  where  I  stand  before  the  glass, 
and  puts  a  pin  here  and  a  ribbon  there,  and  gives 
my  hair  (which  she  has  dressed  herself)  a  little 
dab,  to  make  it  lie  differently,  and  then  scrambles 
back  to  her  sofa,  and  knocks  her  lame  ankle  against 
something,  and  lies  there  groaning  and  enjoying 
herself  like  a  martyr.  On  days  when  she  thinks 
she  is  never  going  to  get  well,  she  says  she  does  n't 
know  why  she  does  n't  give  me  her  things  at  once 
and  be  done  with  it ;  and  on  days  when  she  thinks 
she  is  going  to  get  well  right  away,  she  says  she 
will  have  me  one  made  something  like  whatever 
dress  I  have  got  on,  as  soon  as  she  's  home.  Then 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  123 

up  she  '11  jump  again  for  the  exact  measure,  and 
tell  me  the  history  of  every  stitch,  and  how  she  '11 
have  it  altered  just  the  least  grain,  and  differently 
trimmed  to  suit  my  complexion  better ;  and  ends 
by  having  promised  to  get  me  something  not  in 
the  least  like  it.  You  have  some  idea  already  of 
what  Fanny  is ;  and  all  you  have  got  to  do  is  to 
multiply  it  by  about  fifty  thousand.  Her  sprained 
ankle  simply  intensifies  her  whole  character. 

Besides  helping  to  compose  Fanny's  expedition 
ary  corps,  and  really  exerting  himself  in  the  cause 
of  Uncle  Jack,  as  he  calls  it,  Dick  is  behaving 
beautifully.  Every  morning,  after  breakfast,  he 
goes  over  to  the  hotel,  and  looks  at  the  arrivals 
and  reads  the  newspapers,  and  though  we  never 
get  anything  out  of  him  afterwards,  we  somehow 
feel  informed  of  all  that  is  going  on.  He  has 
taken  to  smoking  a  clay  pipe  in  honor  of  the  Cana 
dian  fashion,  and  he  wears  a  gay,  barbaric  scarf 
of  Indian  muslin  wound  round  his  hat  and  flying 
out  behind  ;  because  the  Quebeckers  protect  them 
selves  in  that  way  against  sunstroke  when  the  ther 
mometer  gets  up  among  the  sixties.  He  has  also 
bought  a  pair  of  snow-shoes  to  be  prepared  for  the 
other  extreme  of  weather,  in  case  anything  else 
should  happen  to  Fanny,  and  detain  us  into  the 
winter.  When  he  has  rested  from  his  walk  to  the 


124  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

hotel,  wo  usually  go  out  together  and  explore,  as 
we  do  also  in  the  afternoon  ;  and  in  the  evening 
we  walk  on  Durham  Terrace,  —  a  promenade  over 
looking  the  river,  where  the  whole  cramped  and 
crooked  city  goes  for  exercise.  It 's  a  formal  pa 
rade  in  the  evening ;  but  one  morning  I  went 
there  before  breakfast,  for  a  change,  and  found  it 
the  resort  of  careless  ease  ;  two  or  three  idle  boys 
were  sunning  themselves  on  the  carriages  of  the 
big  guns  that  stand  on  the  Terrace,  a  little  dog 
was  barking  at  the  chimneys  of  the  Lower  Town, 
and  an  old  gentleman  was  walking  up  and  down 
in  his  dressing-gown  and  slippers,  just  as  if  it  were 
his  own  front  porch.  He  looked  something  like 
Uncle  Jack,  and  I  wished  it  had  been  he,  — to  see 
the  smoke  curling  softly  up  from  the  Lower  Town, 
the  bustle  about  the  market-place,  and  the  ship 
ping  in  the  river,  and  the  haze  hanging  over  the 
water  a  little  way  off,  and  the  near  hills  all  silver, 
and  the  distant  ones  blue. 

But  if  we  are  coming  to  the  grand  and  the  beau 
tiful,  why.  there  is  no  direction  in  which  you  can 
look  about  Quebec  without  seeing  it ;  and  it  is 
always  mixed  up  with  something  so  familiar  and 
homelike,  that  my  heart  warms  to  it.  The  Jesuit 
Barracks  are  just  across  the  street  from  us  in  tl.o 
foreground  of  the  most  magnificent  landscape  ;  the 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  \'1~) 

building  is — think,  you  Eriecreekcrs  of  an  hour  ! 
—  two  hundred  years  old,  and  it  looks  five  hun 
dred.  The  English  took  it  away  from  the  Jesuits 
in  1760,  and  have  used  it  as  barracks  ever  since ; 
but  it  is  n't  in  the  least  changed,  so  that  a  Jesuit 
missionary  who  visited  it  the  other  day  said  that  it 
was  as  if  his  brother  priests  had  been  driven  out  of 
it  the  week  before.  Well,  you  might  think  so  old 
and  so  historical  a  place  would  be  putting  on  airs, 
but  it  takes  as  kindly  to  domestic  life  as  a  new 
frame-house,  and  I  am  never  tired  of  looking  over 
into  the  yard  at  the  frowsy  soldiers'  wives  hanging 
out  clothes,  and  the  unkempt  children  playing 
among  the  burdocks,  and  chickens  and  cats,  and 
the  soldiers  themselves  carrying  about  the  officers' 
boots,  or  sawing  wood  and  picking  up  chips  to 
boil  the  teakettle.  They  are  oif  dignity  as  well 
as  off  duty,  then ;  but  when  they  are  on  both,  and 
in  full  dress,  they  make  our  volunteers  (as  1  re 
member  them)  seem  very  shabby  and  slovenly. 

Over  the  belfry  of  the  Barracks,  our  window's 
command  a  view  of  half  Quebec,  with  its  roofs  and 
spires  dropping  down  the  slope  to  the  Lower 
Town,  where  the  masts  of  the  ships  in  the  river 
come  tapering  up  among  them,  and  then  of  the 
plain  stretching  from  the  river  in  the  valley  to  p4 
range  of.  mountains  against  the  horizon,  with  far- 


126  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

off  white  villages  glimmering  out  of  their  purple 
folds.  The  whole  plain  is  bright  with  houses  and 
harvest-fields  ;  and  the  distinctly  divided  farms  — 
the  owners  cut  them  up  every  generation,  and  give 
each  son  a  strip  of  the  entire  length  —  run  back 
on  either  uand,  from  the  straight  roads  bordered 
by  poplars,  while  the  highways  near  the  city  pass 
between  lovely  villas. 

But  this  landscape  and  the  Jesuit  Barracks, 
with  all  their  merits,  are  nothing  to  the  Ursuline 
Convent,  just  under  our  back  windows,  which  I 
told  you  something  about  in  my  other  letter.  We 
have  been  reading  up  its  history  since,  and  we 
know  about  Madame  dc  la  Peltrie,  the  noble  Nor 
man  lady  who  founded  it  in  1640.  She  was  very 
rich  and  very  beautiful,  and  a  saint  from  the 
beginning,  so  that  when  her  husband  died,  and  her 
poor  old  father  wanted  her  to  marry  again  and  not 
go  into  a  nunnery,  she  did  n't  mind  cheating  him 
by  a  sham  marriage  with  a  devout  gentleman  ; 
and  she  came  to  Canada  as  soon  as  her  father  was 
dead,  with  another  saint,  Marie  de  1' Incarnation, 
and  founded  this  convent.  The  first  building  is 
standing  yet, '  as  strong  as  ever,  though  every 
thing  but  the  stone  walls  was  burnt  two  centu 
ries  ago.  Only  a  few  years  since  an  old  ash-tree, 
under  which  the  Ursulincs  first  taught  the  Indian 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  127 

children,  blew  down,  and  now  a  large  black  cross 
marks  its  place.  The  modern  nuns  are  in  the 
garden  nearly  the  whole  morning  long,  and  by 
night  the  ghosts  of  the  former  nuns  haunt  it ;  and 
in  very  bright  moonlight  I  myself  do  a  bit  of 
Madame  de  la  Peltrie  there,  and  teach  little  Indian 
boys,  who  dwindle  like  those  in  the  song,  as  the 
moon  goes  down.  It  is  an  enchanted  place,  and  I 
wish  we  had  it  in  the  back  yard  at  Eriecreek, 
though  I  don't  think  the  neighbors  would  approve 
of  the  architecture.  I  have  adopted  two  nuns  for 
my  own  :  one  is  tall  and  slender  and  pallid,  and 
you  can  see  at  a  glance  that  she  broke  the  heart 
of  a  mortal  lover,  and  knew  it,  when  she  became 
the  bride  of  heaven  ;  and  the  other  is  short  and 
plain  and  plump,  and  looks  as  comfortable  and 
commonplace  as  life-after-dinner.  When  the  world 
is  bright  I  revel  in  the  statue-like  sadness  of  the 
beautiful  nun,  who  never  laughs  or  plays  with  the 
little  girl  pupils  ;  but  when  the  world  is  dark  — 
as  the  best  of  worlds  will  be  at  times  for  a  minute 
or  two  —  I  take  to  the  fat  nun,  and  go  in  for  a 
clumsy  romp  with  the  children  ;  and  then  I  fancy 
that  I  am  wiser  if  not  better  than  the  fair  slim 
Ursuline.  But  whichever  I  am,  for  the  time 
being,  I  am  vexed  with  the  other ;  yet  they  al 
ways  are  together,  as  if  they  were  counterparts. 


128  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

I   think    a   nice   story   might   be   written    about 
them. 

In  Wolfe's  siege  of  Quebec  this  Ursuline  Garden 
of  ours  was  everywhere  tornup  by  the  falling  bombs, 
and  the  sisters  were  driven  out  into  the  world 
they  had  forsaken  forever,  as  Fanny  has  been 
reading  in  a  little  French  account  of  the  events, 
written  at  the  time,  by  a  nun  of  the  General 
Hospital.  It  was  there  the  Ursulines  took  what 
refuge  there  was ;  going  from  their  cloistered 
school-rooms  and  their  innocent  little  ones  to  the 
wards  of  the  hospital,  filled  with  the  wounded  and 
dying  -of  either  side,  and  echoing  with  their  dread 
ful  groans.  What  a  sad,  evil,  bewildering  world 
they  had  a  glimpse  of !  In  the  garden  here,  our 
poor  Montcalm  —  I  belong  to  the  French  side, 
please,  in  Quebec  —  was  buried  in  a  grave  dug  for 
him  by  a  bursting  shell.  They  have  his  skull  now 
in  the  chaplain's  room  of  the  convent,  where  we 
saw  it  the  other  day.  They  have  made  it  com 
fortable  in  a  glass  box,  neatly  bound  with  black, 
and  covered  with  a  white  lace  drapery,  just  as  if  it 
were  a  saint's.  It  was  broken  a  little  in  taking  it 
out  of  the  grave ;  and  a  few  years  ago,  some  Eng 
lish  officers  borrowed  it  to  look  at,  and  were  horri 
ble  enough  to  pull  out  some  of  the  teeth.  Tell 
Uncle  Jack  the  head  is  very  broad  above  the  ears, 
l)ut  the  forehead  is  small. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  129 

The  chaplain  also  showed  us  a  copy  of  an  old 
painting  of  the  first  convent,  Indian  lodges,  Ma 
dame  de  la  Peltrie's  house,  and  Madame  herself, 
very  splendidly  dressed,  with  an  Indian  chief  before 
her,  and  some  French  cavaliers  riding  down  an 
avenue  towards  her.  Then  he  showed  us  some  of 
the  nuns'  work  in  albums,  painted  and  lettered  in 
a  way  to  give  me  an  idea  of  old  missals.  By  and 
by  he  went  into  the  chapel  with  us,  and  it  gave 
such  a  queer  notion  of  his  indoors  life  to  have  him 
put  on  an  overcoat  and  india-rubbers  to  go  a  few 
rods  through  the  open  air  to  the  chapel  door  :  he 
had  not  been  very  well,  he  said.  When  he  got  in, 
he  took  off  his  hat,  and  put  on  an  octagonal  priest's 
cap,  and  showed  us  everything  in  the  kindest  way 
—  and  his  manners  were  exquisite.  There  were 
beautiful  paintings  sent  out  from  France  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  ;  and  wood-carvings  round 
the  high-altar,  done  by  Quebec  artists  in  the  be 
ginning  of  the  last  century  ;  for  he  said  they  had 
a  school  of  arts  then  at  St.  Anne's,  twenty  miles 
below  the  city.  Then  there  was  an  ivory  cruci 
fix,  so  life-like  that  you  could  scarcely  bear  to 
look  at  it.  But  what  I  most  cared  for  was  the 
tiny  twinkle  of  a  votive  lamp  which  he  pointed  out 
to  us  in  one  corner  of  the  nuns'  chapel  :  it  was  lit 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  by  two  of  our  French 
6*  i 


130  A    Chance  Acquaintance. 

officers  when  their  sister  took  the  veil,  and  has 
never  been  extinguished  since,  except  during  the 
siege  of  1759.  Of  coarse,  1  think  a  story  might 
be  written  about  this  ;  and  the  truth  is,  the  possi 
bilities  of  fiction  in  Quebec  are  overpowering ; 
I  go  about  in  a  perfect  haze  of  romances,  and 
meet  people  at  every  turn  who  have  nothing  to  do 
but  invite  the  passing  novelist  into  their  houses, 
and  have  their  likenesses  done  at  once  for  heroes 
and  heroines.  They  need  n't  change  a  thing  about 
them,  but  sit  just  as  they  are ;  and  if  this  is  in 
the  present,  only  think  how  the  whole  past  of 
Quebec  must  be  crying  out  to  be  put  into  histor 
ical  romances ! 

I  wish  you  could  see  the  houses,  and  how 
substantial  they  are.  I  can  only  think  of  Erie- 
creek  as  an  assemblage  of  huts  and  bark-lodges  in 
contrast.  Our  boarding-house  is  comparatively 
slight,  and  has  stone  walls  only  a  foot  and  a  half 
thick,  but  the  average  is  two  feet  and  two  and  a 
half;  and  the  other  day  Dick  went  through  the 
Laval  University,  —  he  goes  everywhere  and  gets 
acquainted  with  everybody,  —  and  saw  the  foun 
dation  walls  of  the  first  building,  which  have  stood 
all  the  sieges  and  conflagrations  since  the  seven 
teenth  century  ;  and  no  wonder,  for  they  are  six 
feet  thick,  and  form  a  series  of  low-vaulted  corri- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  131 

dors,  as  heavy,  he  says,  as  the  casemates  of  a 
fortress.  There  is  a  beautiful  old  carved  staircase 
there,  of  the  same  date  ;  and  he  liked  the  presi 
dent,  a  priest,  ever  so  much  ;  and  we  like  the 
looks  of  all  the  priests  we  see  ;  they  are  so  hand 
some  and  polite,  and  they  all  speak  English,  with 
some  funny  little  defect.  The  other  day,  we  asked 
such  a  nice  young  priest  about  the  way  to  Hare 
Point,  where  it  is  said  the  Recollet  friars  had  their 
first  mission  on  the  marshy  meadows  :  he  did  n't 
know  of  this  bit  of  history,  and  we  showed  him 
our  book.  "  Ah  !  you  see,  the  book  say  '  pro-bab- 
ly  the  site.'  If  it  had  said  certainly,  I  should  have 
known.  But  pro-bab-\y,  pro-bab-\y,  you  see  !  " 
However,  he  showed  us  the  way,  and  down  we 
went  through  the  Lower  Town,  and  out  past  the 
General  Hospital  to  this  Pointe  aux  Lievres,  which 
is  famous  also  because  somewhere  near  it,  on  the 
St.  Charles,  Jacques  Cartier  wintered  in  1536,  and 
kidnapped  the  Indian  king  Donnacona,  whom  he 
carried  to  France.  And  it  was  here  Montcalm's 
forces  tried  to  rally  after  their  defeat  by  Wolfe. 
(Please  read  this  several  times  to  Uncle  Jack,  so 
that  he  can  have  it  impressed  upon  him  how 
faithful  I  am  in  my  historical  researches.) 

It  makes  me  dreadfully  angry  and  sad  to  think 
the  French  should  have  been  robbed  of  Quebec, 


132  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

after  what  they  did  to  build  it.  But  it  is  still 
quite  a  French  city  in  everything,  even  to  sympa 
thy  with  France  in  this  Prussian  war,  which  you 
would  hardly  think  they  would  care  about.  Our 
landlady  says  the  very  boys  in  the  street  know 
about  the  battles,  and  explain,  every  time  the 
French  are  beaten,  how  they  were  outnumbered 
and  betrayed,  —  something  the  way  we  used  to  do 
in  the  first  of  our  war. 

I  suppose  you  will  think  I  am  crazy ;  but  I  do 
wish  Uncle  Jack  would  wind  up  his  practice  at 
Eriecreek,  and  sell  the  house,  and  come  to  live 
at  Quebec.  I  have  been  asking  prices  of  things, 
and  I  find  that  everything  is  very  cheap,  even 
according  to  the  Eriecreek  standard ;  we  could 
get  a  beautiful  house  on  the  St.  Louis  Road 
for  two  hundred  a  year  ;  beef  is  ten  or  twelve 
cents  a  pound,  and  everything  else  in  proportion. 
Then  besides  that,  the  washing  is  sent  out  into 
the  country  to  be  done  by  the  peasant-women, 
and  there  is  n't  a  crumb  of  bread  baked  in  the 
house,  but  it  all  comes  from  the  bakers  ;  and  only 
think,  girls,  what  a  relief  that  would  be  !  Do  get 
Uncle  Jack  to  consider  it  seriously. 

Since  I  began  this  letter  the  afternoon  has 
worn  away  —  the  light  from  the  sunset  on  the 
mountains  would  glorify  our  supper-table  without 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  133 

extra  charge,  if  we  lived  here  —  and  the  twilight 
has  passed,  aud  the  moon  has  come  up  over  the 
gables  and  dormer-windows  of  the  convent,  and 
looks  into  the  garden  so  invitingly  that  I  can't 
help  joining  her.  So  I  will  put  my  writing  by  till 
to-morrow.  The  going-to-bed  bell  has  rung,  and 
the  red  lights  have  vanished  one  by  one  from  the 
windows,  and  the  nuns  are  asleep,  and  another  set 
of  ghosts  is  playing  in  the  garden  with  the  copper- 
colored  phantoms  of  the  Indian  children  of  long 
ago.  What !  not  Madame  de  la  Peltrie  1  Oh  ! 
how  do  they  like  those  little  fibs  of  yours  up  in 
heaven  ] 

Sunday  afternoon.  —  As  we  were  at  the  French 
cathedral  last  Sunday,  we  went  to  the  English 
to-day ;  and  I  could  easily  have  imagined  myself 
in  some  church  of  Old  England,  hearing  the  royal 
family  prayed  for,  and  listening  to  the  pretty  poor 
sermon  delivered  with  such  an  English  brogue. 
The  people,  too,  had  such  Englishy  faces  and  such 
queer  little  eccentricities  of  dress  ;  the  young  lady 
that  sang  contralto  in  the  choir  wore  a  scarf  like 
a  man's  on  her  hat.  The  cathedral  is  n't  much, 
architecturally,  I  suppose,  but  it  affected  me  very 
solemnly,  and  I  could  n't  help  feeling  that  it  was 
as  much  a  part  of  British  power  and  grandeur  as 
the  citadel  itself.  Over  the  bishop's  seat  drooped 


134  A  C fiance  Acquaintance. 

the  flag  of  a  Crimean  regiment,  tattered  by  time 
and  battles,  which  was  hung  up  here  with  great 
ceremonies,  in  I860,  when  the  Prince  of  Wales 
presented  them  with  new  colors ;  and  up  in  the 
gallery  was  a  kind  of  glorified  pew  for  royal  high 
nesses  and  governor-generals  and  so  forth,  to  sit  in 
when  they  are  here.  There  are  tablets  and  mon 
umental  busts  about  the  walls ;  and  one  to  the 
memory  of  the  Duke  of  Lenox,  the  governor-general 
who  died  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  from 
the  bite  of  a  fox ;  which  seemed  an  odd  fate  for  a 
duke,  and  somehow  made  me  very  sorry  for  him. 

Fanny,  of  course,  could  n't  go  to  church  with 
me,  and  Dick  got  out  of  it  by  lingering  too  late 
over  the  newspapers  at  the  hotel,  and  so  I  trudged 
off  with  our  Bostonian,  who  is  still  with  us  here. 
I  did  n't  dwell  much  upon  him  in  my  last  letter, 
and  I  don't  believe  now  I  can  make  him  quite 
clear  to  you.  He  has  been  a  good  deal  abroad, 
and  he  is  Europeanized  enough  not  to  think  much 
of  America,  though  I  can't  find  that  he  quite 
approves  of  Europe,  and  his  experience  seems  not 
to  have  left  him  any  particular  country  in  either 
hemisphere. 

He  is  n't  the  Bostonian  of  Uncle  Jack's  imagi 
nation,  and  I  suspect  he  would  n't  like  to  be.  He 
is  rather  too  young,  still,  to  have  much  of  an  aiiti- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  135 

slavery  record,  and  even  if  he  had  lived  soon 
enough,  I  think  that  he  would  not  have  been  a 
John  Brown  man.  I  ain  afraid  that  he  believes  in 
"  vulgar  and  meretricious  distinctions  "  of  all  sorts, 
and  that  he  has  n't  an  atom  of  "magnanimous 
democracy  "  in  him.  In  fact,  I  find,  to  my  great 
astonishment,  that  some  ideas  which  I  thought 
were  held  only  in  England,  and  which  I  had  never 
seriously  thought  of,  seem  actually  a  part  of  Mr. 
Arbut  >n's  nature  or  education.  He  talks  about 
the  lower  classes,  and  tradesmen,  and  the  best 
people,  and  good  families,  as  I  supposed  nobody 
in  this  country  ever  did,  —  in  earnest.  To  be  sure, 
I  have  always  been  reading  of  characters  who 
had  such  opinions,  but  I  thought  they  were  just 
put  into  novels  to  eke  out  somebody's  unhappi- 
ness,  —  to  keep  the  high-born  daughter  from  mar 
rying  beneath  her  for  love,  and  so  on ;  or  else  to 
be  made  fun  of  in  the  person  of  some  silly  old 
woman  or  some  odious  snob ;  and  I  could  hardly 
believe  at  first  that  our  Bostonian  was  serious  in 
talking  in  that  way.  Such  things  sound  so  differ 
ently  in  real  life  ;  and  I  laughed  at  them  till  I 
found  that  he  did  n't  know  what  to  make  of  my 
laughing,  and  then  I  took  leave  to  differ  with  him 
in  some  of  his  notions ;  but  he  never  disputes  any 
thing  I  say,  and  so  makes  it  seem  rude  to  differ 


136  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

with  him.  I  always  feel,  though  he  begins  it, 
as  if  I  had  thrust  my  opinions  upon  him.  But 
in  spite  of  his  weaknesses  and  disagreeabilities, 
there  is  something  really  high  about  him ;  he  is  so 
scrupulously  true,  so  exactly  just,  that  Uncle  Jack 
himself  could  n't  be  more  so ;  though  you  can  see 
that  he  respects  his  virtues  as  the  peculiar  result 
of  some  extraordinary  system.  Here  at  Quebec, 
though  he  goes  round  patronizing  the  landscape 
and  the  antiquities,  and  coldly  smiling  at  my  little 
enthusiasms,  there  is  really  a  great  deal  that  ought 
to  be  at  least  improving  in  him.  I  get  to  paying 
him  the  same  respect  that  he  pays  himself,  and 
imbues  his  very  clothes  with,  till  everything  he 
has  on  appears  to  look  like  him  and  respect  itself 
accordingly.  I  have  often  wondered  what  his  hat, 
his  honored  hat,  for  instance,  would  do,  if  I  should 
throw  it  out  of  the  front  window.  It  would  make 
an  earthquake,  I  believe. 

He  is  politely  curious  about  us ;  and  from  time 
to  time,  in  a  shrinking,  disgusted  way,  he  asks 
some  leading  question  about  Eriecreek,  which  he 
does  n't  seem  able  to  form  any  idea  of,  as  much  as 
I  explain  it.  He  clings  to  his  original  notion,  that 
it  is  in  the  heart  of  the  Oil  Regions,  of  which  he 
has  seen  pictures  in  the  illustrated  papers;  and 
when  I  assert  myself  against  his  opinions,  he 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  137 

Ireats  me  very  gingerly,  as  if  I  were  an  explosive 
sprite,  or  an  inflammable  naiad  from  a  torpedoed 
well,  and  it  would  n't  be  quite  safe  to  oppose  me, 
or  I  would  disappear  with  a  flash  and  a  bang. 

When  Dick  is  n't  able  to  go  with  me  on  Fanny's 
account,  Mr.  Arbuton  takes  his  place  in  the  expe 
ditionary  corps ;  and  we  have  visited  a  good  many 
points  of  interest  together,  and  now  and  then  he 
talks  very  entertainingly  about  his  travels.  But  I 
don't  think  they  have  made  him  very  cosmopoli 
tan.  It  seems  as  if  he  went  about  with  a  little 
imaginary  standard,  and  was  chiefly  interested  in 
things,  to  see  whether  they  fitted  it  or  not.  Tri 
fling  matters  annoy  him ;  and  when  he  finds  sub 
limity  mixed  up  with  absurdity,  it  almost  makes 
him  angry.  One  of  the  oddest  and  oldest-looking 
buildings  in  Quebec  is  a  little  one-story  house 
on  St.  Louis  Street,  to  which  poor  General  Mont 
gomery  was  taken  after  he  was  shot ;  and  it  is  a 
pastry-cook's  now,  and  the  tarts  and  cakes  in  the 
window  vexed  Mr.  Arbuton  so  much  —  not  that 
•he  seemed  to  care  for  Montgomery  —  that  I  did  n't 
dare  to  laugh. 

I  live  very  little  in  the  nineteenth  century  at 
present,  and  do  not  care  much  for  people  wrho  do. 
Still  I  have  a  few  grains  of  affection  left  for  Uncle 
Jack,  which  I  want  you  to  give  him. 


138  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

I  suppose  it  will  take  about  six  stamps  to  pay 
this  letter.  I  forgot  to  say  that  Dick  goes  to  be 
barbered  every  day  at  the  "  Montcalm  Shaving 
and  Shampooing  Saloon,"  so  called  because  they 
say  Montcalm  held  his  last  council  of  war  there. 
It  is  a  queer  little  steep-roofed  house,  with  a  flow 
ering  bean  up  the  front,  and  a  bit  of  garden,  full 
of  snap-dragons,  before  it. 

We  shall  be  here  a  week  or  so  yet,  at  any  rate, 
and  then,  I  think,  we  shall  go  straight  home,  Dick 
has  lost  so  much  time  already. 

With  a  great  deal  of  love, 

Your  KITTY. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  139 

VII. 
LOVE'S  YOUXG   ETREAM. 

H  the  two  young  people  whose  days  now 
\/\7Hi  laPse^  awaJ  together,  it  could  not  be  said 
Jf.j^Ml  that  Monday  varied  much  from  Tuesday, 
or  ten  o'clock  from  half  past  three  ;  they  were  not 
always  certain  what  day  of  the  week  it  was,  and 
sometimes  they  fancied  that  a  thing  which  hap 
pened  in  the  morning  had  taken  place  yesterday 
afternoon. 

But  whatever  it  was,  and  however  uncertain 
in  time  and  character  their  slight  adventure  was 
to  themselves,  Mrs.  Ellison  secured  all  possible 
knowledge  of  it  from  Kitty.  Since  it  was  her  mis 
fortune  that  promoted  it,  she  considered  herself  a 
martyr  to  Kitty's  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Arbuton, 
and  believed  that  she  had  the  best  claim  to  any 
gossip  that  could  come  of  it.  She  lounged  upon 
her  sofa,  and  listened  with  a  patience  superior  to 
the  maiden  caprice  with  which  her  inquisition  was 
sometimes  met ;  for  if  that  delayed  her  satisfac 
tion  it  also  employed  her  arts,  and  the  final  tri 
umph  of  getting  everything  out  of  Kitty  afforded 


140  A   Cliance  Acquaintance. 

her  a  delicate  self-flattery.  But  commonly  the 
young  girl  was  ready  enough  to  speak,  for  she  was 
glad  to  have  the  light  of  a  worldlier  mind  and  a 
greater  experience  than  her  own  on  Mr.  Arbuton's 
character  :  if  Mrs.  Ellison  was  not  the  wisest  head, 
still  talking  him  over  was  at  least  a  relief  from 
thinking  him  over  ;  and  then,  at  the  end  of  the 
ends,  when  were  ever  two  women  averse  to  talk 
of  a  man  1 

She  commonly  sought  Fanny's  sofa  when  she 
returned  from  her  rambles  through  the  city,  and 
gave  a  sufficiently  strict  account  of  what  had  hap 
pened.  This  was  done  light-heartedly  and  with 
touches  of  burlesque  and  extravagance  at  first ; 
but  the  reports  grew  presently  to  have  a  more 
serious  tone,  and  latterly  Kitty  had  been  so  absent 
at  times  that  she  wTould  fall  into  a  puzzled  silence 
in  the  midst  of  her  narration ;  or  else  she  would 
meet  a  long  procession  of  skilfully  marshalled 
questions  with  a  flippancy  that  no  one  but  a  mar 
tyr  could  have  suffered.  But  Mrs.  Ellison  bore 
all  and  would  have  borne  nmch  more  in  that 
cause.  Baffled  at  one  point,  she  turned  to  an 
other,  and  the  sum  of  her  researches  was  often  a 
clearer  perception  of  Kitty's  state  of  mind  than 
the  young  girl  herself  possessed.  For  her,  indeed, 
the  whole  affair  was  full  of  mystery  and  misgiving. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  141 

"  Our  acquaintance  has  the  charm  of  novelty 
every  time  we  meet,"  she  said  once,  when  pressed 
hard  by  Mrs.  Ellison.  "  We  are  growing  better 
strangers,  Mr.  Arbuton  and  I.  By  and  by,  somo 
morning,  we  shall  not  know  each  other  by  sight. 
I  can  barely  recognize  him  now,  though  I  thought 
I  knew  him  pretty  well  once.  I  want  you  to  un 
derstand  that  I  speak  as  an  unbiassed  spectator, 
Fanny." 

"  0  Kitty  !  how  can  you  accuse  me  of  trying  to 
pry  into  your  affairs!"  cries  injured  Mrs.  Ellison, 
and  settles  herself  in  a  more  comfortable  posture 
for  listening. 

"I  don't  accuse  you  of  anything.  I  'm  sure 
you've  a  right  to  know  everything  about  me. 
Only,  I  want  you  really  to  know." 

"  Yes,  dear,"  says  the  matron,  with  hypocritical 
meekness. 

"  Well,"  resumes  Kitty,  "there  are  things  that 
puzzle  me  more  and  more  about  him,  —  things 
that  used  to  amuse  me  at  first,  because  I  did  n't 
actually  believe  that  they  could  be,  and  that  I 
felt  like  defying  afterwards.  But  now  I  can't  bear 
up  against  them.  They  frighten  me,  and  seem 
to  deny  me  the  right  to  be  what  I  believe  I 


"  I  don't  understand  you,  Kitty." 


142  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Why,  you  've  seen  how  it  is  with  us  at 
home,  and  how  Uncle  Jack  has  brought  us  up. 
We  never  had  a  rule  for  anything  except  to  do 
what  was  right,  and  to  be  careful  of  the  rights  of 
others." 

"Well." 

V  "  Well,  Mr.  Arbuton  seems  to  have  lived  in  a 
world  where  everything  is  regulated  by  some  rigid 
law  that  it  would  be  death  to  break.  Then,  you 
know,  at  home  we  are  always  talking  about  people, 
and  discussing  them ;  but  we  always  talk  of  each 
person  for  what  he  is  in  himself,  and  I  always 
thought  a  person  could  refine' himself  if  he  tried, 
and  was  sincere,  and  not  conceited.  But  he  seems 
to  judge  people  according  to  their  origin  and 
locality  and  calling,  and  to  believe  that  all  refine 
ment  must  come  from  just  such  training  and  cir 
cumstances  as  his  own.  Without  exactly  saying 
so,  he  puts  everything  else  quite  out  of  the 
question.  He  does  n't  appear  to  dream  that  there 
can  be  any  different  opinion.  He  tramples  upon 
all  that  I  have  been  taught  to  believe  ;  and  though 
I  cling  the  closer  to  my  idols,  I  can't  help,  now 
and  then,  trying  myself  by  his  criterions  ;  and 
then  I  find  myself  wanting  in  every  civilized  trait, 
and  my  whole  life  coarse  and  poor,  and  all  my 
associations  hopelessly  degraded.  I  think  his 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  143 

ideas  are  hard  and  narrow,  and  I  believe  that 
even  ray  little  experience  would  prove  them  Mse  ; 
but  then,  they  are  his,  and  I  can't  reconcile  them 
with  what  I  see  is  good  in  him." 

Kitty  spoke  with  half-averted  face  where  she 
sat  beside  one  of  the  front  windows,  looking  ab 
sently  out  on  the  distant  line  of  violet  hills  be 
yond  Charlesbourg,  and  now  and  then  lifting  her 
glove  from  her  lap  and  letting  it  drop  again. 

"  Kitty,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison  in  reply  to  her  diffi 
culties,  "  you  ought  n't  to  sit  against  a  light  like 
that.  It  makes  your  profile  quite  black  to  any 
one  back  in  the  room." 

"  0  well,  Fanny,  I  'm  not  black  in  reality." 

"  Yes,  but  a  young  lady  ought  always  to  think 
how  she  is  looking.  Suppose  some  one  was  to 
come  in." 

"  Dick 's  the  only  one  likely  to  come  in  just 
now,  and  he  would  n't  mind  it.  But  if  you  like  it 
better,  I  '11  come  and  sit  by  you,"  said  Kitty,  and 
took  her  place  beside  the  sofa. 

Her  hat  was  in  her  hand,  her  sack  on  her  arm  ; 
the  fatigue  of  a  recent  walk  gave  her  a  soft  pallor, 
and  languor  of  face  and  attitude.  Mrs.  Ellison 
admired  her  pretty  looks  with  a  generous  regret 
that  they  should  be  wasted  on  herself,  and  then 
asked,  "  Where  were  you  this  afternoon  ? " 


144  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

11  0,  we  went  to  the  Hotel  Dieu,  for  one  thing, 
and  afterwards  we  looked  into  the  court-yard  of  the 
convent ;  and  there  another  of  his  pleasant  little 
traits  came  out,  — a  way  he  has  of  always  putting 
you  in  the  wrong  even  when  it 's  a  matter  of  no 
consequence  any  way,  and  there  need  n't  be  any 
right  or  wrong  about  it.  I  remembered  the  place 
because  Mrs.  March,  you  know,  showed  us  a  rose 
that  one  of  the  nuns  in  the  hospital  gave  her,  and 
I  tried  to  tell  Mr.  Arbuton  about  it,  and  he  gra 
ciously  took  it  as  if  poor  Mrs.  March  had  made  an 
advance  towards  his  acquaintance.  I  do  wish  you 
could  see  what  a  lovely  place  that  court-yard  is, 
Fanny.  It 's  so  strange  that  such  a  thing  should 
be  right  there,  in  the  heart  of  this  crowded  city ; 
but  there  it  was,  with  its  peasant  cottage  on  one 
side,  and  its  long,  low  barns  on  the  other,  and 
those  wide-horned  Canadian  cows  munching  at  the 
racks  of  hay  outside,  and  pigeons  and  chickens  all 
about  among  their  feet  — 

"  Yes,  yes ;  never  mind  all  that,  Kitty.  You 
know  I  hate  nature.  Go  on  about  Mr.  Arbuton," 
said  Mrs.  Ellison,  who  did  not  mean  a  sarcasm. 

"  It  looked  like  a  farm-yard  in  a  picture,  far  out 
in  the  country  somewhere,"  resumed  Kitty  ;  "  and 
Mr.  Arbuton  did  it  the  honor  to  say  it  was  just 
like  Normandy." 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  145 

"  Kitty  ! " 

"  He  did,  indeed,  Fanny ;  and  the  cows  did  n't 
go  down  on  their  knees  out  of  gratitude,  either. 
Well,  off  on  the  right  were  the  hospital  buildings 
climbing  up,  you  know,  with  their  stone  walls  and 
steep  roofs,  and  windows  dropped  about  over  them, 
like  our  convent  here;  and  there  was  an  artist 
there,  sketching  it  all ;  he  had  such  a  brown, 
pleasant  face,  with  a  little  black  mustache  and 
imperial,  and  such  gay  black  eyes  that  nobody 
could  help  falling  in  love  with  him  ;  and  he  was 
talking  in  such  a  free-and-easy  way  with  the  lazy 
workmen  and  women  overlooking  him.  He  jotted 
down  a  little  image  of  the  Virgin  in  a  niche  on 
the  wall,  and  one  of  the  people  called  out,  —  Mr. 
Arbuton  was  translating,  —  '  Look  there  !  with 
one  touch  he  's  made  our  Blessed  Lady.'  '0,'  says 
the  painter,  '  that 's  nothing  ;  with  three  touches 
I  can  make  the  entire  Holy  Family.'  And  they 
all  laughed ;  and  that  little  joke,  you  know,  won 
my  heart,  —  I  don't  hear  many  jokes  from  Mr. 
Arbuton  ;  —  and  so  1  said  what  a  blessed  life  a 
painter's  must  be,  for  it  would  give  you  a  right  to 
be  a  vagrant,  and  you  could  wander  through  the 
world,  seeing  everything  that  was  lovely  and  funny, 
and  nobody  could  blame  you ;  and  I  wondered 
everybody  who  had  the  chance  did  n't  learn  to 
7  J 


146  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

sketch.  Mr.  Arbuton  took  it  seriously,  and  said 
people  had  to  have  something  more  than  the 
chance  to  learn  before  they  could  sketch,  and  that 
most  of  them  were  an  affliction  with  their  sketch 
books,  and  he  had  seen  too  much  of  the  sad  effects 
of  drawing  from  casts.  And  he  put  me  in  the 
wrong,  as  he  always  does.  Don't  you  see?  I 
did  n't  want  to  learn  drawing ;  I  wanted  to  be  a 
painter,  and  go  about  sketching  beautiful  old  con 
vents,  and  sit  on  camp-stools  on  pleasant  after 
noons,  and  joke  with  people.  Of  course,  he 
could  n't  understand  that.  But  I  know  the  art 
ist  could.  0  Fanny,  if  it  had  only  been  the 
painter  whose  arm  I  took  that  first  day  on  the 
boat,  instead  of  Mr.  Arbuton  !  But  the  worst  of 
it  is,  he  is  making  a  hypocrite  of  me,  and  a  cow 
ardly,  unnatural  girl.  I  wanted  to  go  nearer  and 
look  at  the  painter's  sketch  ;  but  I  was  ashamed 
to  say  I  'd  never  seen  a  real  artist's  sketch  before, 
and  I  'm  getting  to  be  ashamed,  or  to  seem 
ashamed,  of  a  great  many  innocent  things.  He 
has  a  way  of  not  seeming  to  think  it  possible  that 
any  one  he  associates  with  can  differ  from  him. 
And  I  do  differ  from  him.  I  differ  from  him  as 
much  as  my  whole  past  life  differs  from  his  ;  I 
know  I  'm  just  the  kind  of  production  that  he  dis 
approves  of,  and  that  I  'm  altogether  irregular  and 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  147 

unauthorized  and  unjustifiable  ;  and  though  it 's 
funny  to  have  him  talking  to  me  as  if  I  must  have 
the  sympathy  of  a  rich  girl  with  his  ideas,  it 's 
provoking,  too,  and  it 's  very  bad  for  me.  Up  to 
the  present  moment,  Fanny,  if  you  want  to  know, 
that 's  the  principal  effect  of  Mr.  Arbuton  on  me. 
I  'm  being  gradually  snubbed  and  scared  into 
treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils." 

Mrs.  Ellison  did  not  find  all  this  so  very  griev 
ous,  for  she  was  one  of  those  women  who  like  a 
snub  from  the  superior  sex,  if  it  does  not  involve 
a  slight  to  their  beauty  or  their  power  of  pleasing. 
But  she  thought  it  best  not  to  enter  into  the 
question,  and  merely  said,  "But  surely,  Kitty, 
there  are  a  great  many  things  in  Mr.  Arbuton  that 
you  must  respect." 

"  Respect  1  0,  yes,  indeed  !  But  respect  is  n't 
just  the  thing  for  one  who  seems  to  consider 
himself  sacred.  Say  revere,  Fanny  ;  say  revere  !  " 

Kitty  had  risen  from  her  chair,  but  Mrs.  Ellison 
waved  her  again  to  her  seat  with  an  imploring  gest 
ure.  "  Don't  go,  Kitty  ;  I  'm  not  half  done  with 
you  yet.  You  must  tell  me  something  more. 
You  've  stirred  me  up  so,  now.  I  know  you  don't 
always  have  such  disagreeable  times.  You  've 
often  come  home  quite  happy.  What  do  you  gen 
erally  find  to  talk  about  1  Do  tell  me  some  par 
ticulars  for  once." 


148  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Why,  little  topics  come  up,  you  know.  But 
sometimes  we  don't  talk  at  all,  because  I  don't 
like  to  say  what  I  think  or  feel,  for  fear  I  should 
be  thinking  or  feeling  something  vulgar.  Mr. 
Arbuton  is  rather  a  blight  upon  conversation  in 
that  way.  He  makes  you  doubtful  whether  there 
is  n't  something  a  little  common  in  breathing 
and  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  whether  it 
would  n't  be  true  refinement  to  stop  them." 

"  Stuff,  Kitty  !  He  's  very  cultivated,  is  n't  he  ? 
Don't  you  talk  about  books  ]  He  's  read  every 
thing,  I  suppose." 

"  0  yes,  he  's  read  enough." 

"  What  do  you  mean  1 " 

"Nothing.  Only  sometimes  it 'seems  to  me  as 
if  he  had  n't  read  because  he  loved  it,  but  because 
he  thought  it  due  to  himself.  But  maybe  I  'm 
mistaken.  I  could  imagine  a  delicate  poem  shut 
ting  up  half  its  sweetness  from  his  cold,  cold  scru 
tiny,  —  if  you  will  excuse  the  floweriness  of  the 
idea." 

"  Why,  Kitty  !  don't  you  think  he  's  refined  1 
I  'm  sure,  1  think  he 's  a  very  refined  person." 

"  He  's  a  very  elaborated  person.  But  I  don't 
think  it  would  make  much  difference  to  him  what 
our  opinion  of  him  was.  His  own  good  opinion 
would  be  quite  enough." 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  149 

«  is  he  —  is  he  —  always  agreeable  1 " 

"  I  thought  we  were  discussing  his  mind,  Fanny. 

I  don't  know  that  I  feel  like  enlarging  upon  his 

manners^"  said  Kitty,  slyly. 

~~"^But  surely,  Kitty,"  said  the  matron,  with  an 

I  air  of  argument,  "  there 's  some  connection  between 
his  mind  and  his  manners." 
"  Yes,  I  suppose  so.  I  don't  think  there  's  much 
between  his  heart  and  his  manners.  They  seem 
to  have  been  put  on  him  instead  of  having  come 
out  of  him.  He  's  very  well  trained,  and  nine 
times  out  of  ten  he  's  so  exquisitely  polite  that  it 's 
wonderful ;  but  the  tenth  time  he  may  say  some 
thing  so  rude  that  you  can't  believe  it." 

"  Then  you  like  him  nine  times  out  of  ten." 

"  I  did  n't  say  that.  But  for  the  tenth  time, 
it  's  certain,  his  training  does  n't  hold  out,  and  he 
seems  to  have  nothing  natural  to  fall  back  upon. 
But  you  can  believe  that,  if  he  knew  he  'd  been 
disagreeable,  he  'd  be  sorry  for  it." 

"  Why,  then,  Kitty,  how  can  you  say  that  there 's 
no  connection  between  his  heart  and  manners'? 
This  very  thing  proves  that  they  come  from  his 
heart.  Don't  be  illogical,  Kitty,"  said  Mrs.  Elli 
son,  and  her  nerves  added,  sotto  voce,  "  if  you  are 
so  abominably  provoking  ! " 

"0,"  responded  the  young  girl,  with  the  kind  of 


150  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

laugh  that  meant  it  was,  after  all,  not  such  a 
laughing  matter,  "  I  did  n't  say  he  'd  be  sorry 
for  you!  Perhaps  he  would  ;  but  he  'd  be  certain 
to  be  sorry  for  himself.  It  's  with  his  politeness 
as  it  is  with  his  reading ;  he  seems  to  consider  it 
something  that 's  due  to  himself  as  a  gentleman  to 
treat  people  well ;  and  it  is  n't  in  the  least  as  if  he 
cared  for  them.  He  would  n't  like  to  fail  in  such  a 
point." 

"But,  Kitty,  is  n't  that  to  his  credit?" 

"  Maybe.  I  don't  say.  If  I  knew  more  about 
the  world,  perhaps  I  should  admire  it.  But  now, 
you  see," — and  here  Kitty's  laugh  grew  more 
natural,  and  she  gave  a  subtle  caricature  of  Mr. 
Arbuton's  air  and  tone  as  she  spoke,  —  "I  can't 
help  feeling  that  it  's  a  little  —  vulgar." 

Mrs.  Ellison  could  not  quite  make  out  how  much 
Kitty  really  meant  of  what  she  had  said.  She 
gasped  once  or  twice  for  argument ;  then  she  sat 
up,  and  beat  the  sofa-pillows  vengefully  in  com 
posing  herself  anew,  and  finally,  "  Well,  Kitty,  I  'm 
sure  I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  it  all,"  she  said 
with  a  sigh. 

"  Why,  we  're  not  obliged  to  make  anything  of 
it,  Fanny,  there  's  that  comfort,"  replied  Kitty ; 
and  then  there  was  a  silence,  while  she  brooded 
over  the  whole  affair  of  her  acquaintance  with  Mr. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  151 

Arbuton,  which  this  talk  had  failed  to  set  in  a 
more  pleasant  or  hopeful  light.  It  had  begun  like 
a  romance ;  she  had  pleased  her  fancy,  if  not  her 
heart,  with  the  poetry  of  it ;  but  at  last  she  felt 
exiled  and  strange  in  his  presence.  She  had  no 
right  to  a  different  result,  even  through  any  deep 
feeling  in  the  matter ;  but  while  she  ownedj  with 
her  half-sad,  half-comical  consciousness,  that  she 
had  been  tacitly  claiming  and  expecting  too  much, 
she  softly  pitied  herself,  with  a  kind  of  impersonal 
compassion,  as  if  it  were  some  other  girl  whose 
pretty  dream  had  been  broken.  Its  ruin  involved 
the  loss  of  another  ideal ;  for  she  was  aware  that 
there  had  been  gradually  rising  in  her  mind  an 
image  of  Boston,  different  alike  from  the  holy  place 
of  her  childhood,  the  sacred  city  of  the  antislavery 
heroes  and  martyrs,  and  from  the  jesting,  easy, 
sympathetic  Boston  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  March.  This 
new  Boston  with  which  Mr.  Arbuton  inspired  her 
was  a  Boston  of  mysterious  prejudices  and  lofty 
reservations  ;  a  Boston  of  high  and  difficult  tastes, 
that  found  its  social  ideal  in  the  Old  World,  and 
that  shrank  from  contact  with  the  reality  of  this ; 
a  Boston  as  alien  as  Europe  to  her  simple  experi 
ences,  and  that  seemed  to  be  proud  only  of  the 
things  that  were  unlike  other  American  things ;  a 
Boston  that  would  rather  perish  by  fire  and  sword 


152  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

thsm  bo  suspected  of  vulgarity ;  a  critical,  fas 
tidious,  and  reluctant  Boston,  dissatisfied  with  the 
rest  of  the  hemisphere,  and  gelidly  self-satisfied  in 
so  far  as  it  was  not  in  the  least  the  Boston  of  her 
fond  preconceptions.  It  was,  doubtless,  no  more 
the  real  Boston  we  know  and  love,  than  either  of 
the  others ;  and  it  perplexed  her  more  than  it 
need,  even  if  it  hocfnot  ueen  mere  phantasm.  It 
made  her  suspicious  of  Mr.  Arbuton's  behavior 
towards  her,  and  observant  of  little  things  that 
might  very  well  have  otherwise  escaped  her.  The 
bantering  humor,  the  light-hearted  trust  and  self- 
reliance  with  which  she  had  once  met  him  deserted 
her,  and  only  returned  fitfully  when  some  accident 
called  her  out  of  herself,  and  made  her  forget  the 
differences  that  she  now  too  plainly  saw  in  their 
ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.  It  was  a  greater  and 
/greater  effort  to  place  herself  in  sympathy  with 
(him;  she  relaxed  into  a  languid  self-contempt,  as 
I  if  she  had  been  playing  a  part,  when  she  succeeded. 
"  Sometimes,  Fanny,"  she  said,  now,  after  a  long 
pause,  speaking  in  behalf  of  that  other  girl  she 
had  been  thinking  of,  "it  seems  to  me  as  if  Mr. 
Arbuton  were  all  gloves  and  slim  umbrella,  —  the 
mere  husk  of  well-dressed  culture  and  good  man 
ners.  His  looks  do  promise  everything ;  but  () 
dear  me  !  I  should  be  sorry  for  any  one  that  was 


A   CJtsmce  Acquaintance.  153 

in  love  with  him.  Just  imagine  some  girl  meeting 
with  such  a  man,  and  taking  a  fancy  to  him  !  I 
suppose  she  never  would  quite  believe  but  that  he 
must  somehow  be  what  she  first  thought  him,  and 
she  would  go  down  to  her  grave  believing  that  she 
had  failed  to  understand  him.  What  a  curious 
story  it  would  make ! " 

"  Then,  why  don't  you  write   it,  Kitty  ? "  asked 
Mrs.  Ellison.     "  No  one  could  do  it  better." 

Kitty  flushed  quickly  ;  then  she  smiled  :  "  0,  I 
don't  think  I  could  do  it  at  all.  It  would  n't  be 
a  very  easy  story  to  work  out.  Perhaps  he  might 
never  do  anything  positively  disagreeable  enough 
to  make  anybody  condemn  him.  The  only  way 
you  could  show  his  character  would  be  to  have 
her  do  and  say  hateful  things  to  him,  when  she 
could  n't  help  it,  and  then  repent  of  it,  while  he 
was  impassively  perfect  through  everything.  And 
perhaps,  after  all,  he  might  be  regarded  by  some 
stupid  people  as  the  injured  one.  Well,  Mr.  Ar- 
buton  has  been  very  polite  to  us,  I  'm  sure,  Fanny," 
she  said  after  another  pause,  as  she  rose  from  her 
chair,  "  and  may  be  I  'm  unjust  to  him.  I  beg  his 
pardon  of  you  ;  and  I  wish,"  she  added  with  a 
dull  disappointment  quite  her  own,  and  a  pang  of 
surprise  at  words  that  seemed  to  utter  themselves, 
"  that  he  would  go  away." 
7*. 


154  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

11  Why,  Kitty,  I  'm  shocked,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison, 
rising  from  her  cushions. 
"  Yes  ;  so  am  I,  Fanny." 
"  Are  you  really  tired  of  him,  then  1 " 
Kitty  did  not  answer,  but  turned  away  her  fac^ 
a  little,  where  she  stood  beside  the  chair  in  whicU 
she  had  been  sitting. 

Mrs.  Ellison  put  out  her  hand  towards  her. 
"  Kitty,  come  here,"  she  said  with  imperious  ten. 
derness. 

"  No,  I  won't,  Fanny,"  answered  the  young  girl, 
in  a  trembling  voice.  She  raised  the  glove  that 
she  had  been  nervously  swinging  back  and  forth, 
and  bit  hard  upon  the  button  of  it.  "I  don't 
know  whether  I  'm  tired  of  him,  —  though  he  is  n't 
a  person  to  rest  one  a  great  deal,  —  but  I  'm  tired 
of  it.  I  'm  perplexed  and  troubled  the  whole  time, 
and  I  don't  see  any  end  to  it.  Yes,  I  wish  he 
would  go  away  !  Yes,  he  is  tiresome.  What  is  he 
staying  here  for1?  If  he  thinks  himself  so  much 
better  than  all  of  us,  I  wonder  he  troubles  him 
self  with  our  company.  It 's  quite  time  for  him 
to  go.  No,  Fanny,  no,"  cried  Kitty  with  a  little 
broken  laugh,  still  rejecting  the  outstretched  hand, 
"  I  '11  be  flat  in  private,  if  you  please."  And  dash 
ing  her  hand  across  her  eyes,  she  flitted  out 
of  the  room.  At  the  door  she  turned  and  said, 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  155 

"  You  need  n't  think  it 's  what  you  think  it  is, 
Fanny." 

"  No  indeed,  dear  ;  you  're  just  overwrought." 

"  For  I  really  wish  he  'd  go." 

But  it  was  on  this  very  day  that  Mr.  Arbuton 
found  it  harder  than  ever  to  renew  his  resolution 
of  quitting  Quebec,  and  cutting  short  at  once  his 
acquaintance  with  these  people.  He  had  been 
pledging  himself  to  this  in  some  form  every  day, 
and  every  morrow  had  melted  his  resolution  away. 
Whatever  was  his  opinion  of  Colonel  and  Mrs. 
Ellison,  it  is  certain  that,  if  he  considered  Kitty 
merely  in  relation  to  the  present,  he  could  not 
have  said  how,  by  being  different,  she  could  have 
been  better  than  she  was.  He  perceived  a  charm, 
that  would  be  recognized  anywhere,  in  her  manner, 
though  it  was  not  of  his  world  ;  her  fresh  pleasure 
in  all  she  saw,  though  he  did  not  know7  how  to 
respond  to  it,  was  very  winning  ;  he  respected  what 
he  thought  the  good  sense  running  through  her 
transports;  he  wondered ^atvthe  culture  she  had 
somewhere,  somehow  got  ;  and  he  was  so  good  as 
to  find  that  her  literary  enthusiasms  had  nothing 
offensive,"  but  were  as  pretty  and  naive  as  a  girl's 
love  of  flowers.  Moreover,  he  approved  of  some 
personal  attributes  of  hers :  a  low,  gentle  voice, 
tender  long-lashed  eyes  ;  a  trick  of  drooping 


156  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

shoulders,  and  of  idle  hands  fallen  into  the  lap, 
one  in  the  other's  palm  ;  a  serene  repose  of  face  ; 
a  light  and  eager  laugh.  There  was  nothing  so 
novel  in  those  traits,  and  in  different  combination 
he  had  seen  them  a  thousand  times ;  yet  in  her 
they  strangely  wrought  upon  his  fancy.  She  had 
that  soft,  kittenish  way  with  her  which  invites  a 
caressing  patronage,  but,  as  he  learned,  she  had 
also  the  kittenish  equipment  for  resenting  over- 
condescension  ;  and  she  never  took  him  half  so 
much  as  when  she  showed  the  high  spirit  that  was 
in  her,  and  defied  him  most. 

For  here  and  now,  it  was  all  well  enough ;  but 
he  had  a  future  to  which  he  owed  much,  and  a 
conscience  that  would  not  leave  him  at  rest.  The 
fascination  of  meeting  her  so  familiarly  under  the 
same  roof,  the  sorcery  of  the  constant  sight  of  her, 
were  becoming  too  much ;  it  would  not  do  on  any 
account ;  for  his  own  sake  he  must  put  an  end  to 
it.  But  from  hour  to  hour  he  lingered  upon  his 
uncnforced  resolve.  The  passing  days,  that  brought 
him  doubts  in  which  he  shuddered  at  the  great  dif 
ference  between  himself  and  her  and  her  people, 
brought  him  also  moments  of  blissful  forgetfulncss 
in  which  his  misgivings  were  lost  in  the  sweetness 
of  her  looks,  or  the  young  grace  of  her  motions. 
Passing,  the  days  rebuked  his  delay  in  vain ;  a 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  157 

week  and  two  weeks  slipped  from  under  his  feet, 
and  still  he  had  waited  for  fate  to  part  him  and 
his  folly.  But  now  at  last  he  would  go  ;  and  in 
the  evening,  after  his  cigar  on  Durham  Terrace, 
he  knocked  at  Mrs.  Ellison's  door  to  say  that  on 
the  day  after  to-morrow  he  should  push  on  to  the 
White  Mountains. 

He  found  the  Ellisons  talking  over  an  expedition 
for  the  next  morning,  in  which  he  was  also  to  take 
part.  Mrs.  Ellison  had  already  borne  her  full 
share  in  the  preparation ;  for,  being  always  at 
hand  there  in  her  room,  and  having  nothing  to 
do,  she  had  been  almost  a  willing  victim  to  the  col 
onel's  passion  for  information  at  second-hand,  and 
had  probably  come  to  know  more  than  any  other 
American  woman  of  Arnold's  expedition  against 
Quebec  in  1775.  She  knew  why  the  attack  was 
planned,  and  with  what  prodigious  hazard  and 
heroical  toil  and  endurance  it  was  carried  out ; 
how  the  dauntless  little  army  of  riflemen  cut  their 
way  through  the  untrodden  forests  of  Maine  and 
Canada,  and  beleaguered  the  gray  old  fortress  on 
her  rock  till  the  red  autumn  faded  into  winter,  and, 
on  the  last  bitter  night  of  the  year,  flung  themselves 
against  her  defences,  and  fell  back,  leaving  half 
their  number  captive,  Montgomery  dead,  and  Ar 
nold  wounded,  but  haplessly  destined  to  survive. 


158  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  colonel,  "  considering  the  age  in 
which  they  lived,  and  their  total  lack  of  modern 
improvements,  mental,  moral,  and  physical,  we 
must  acknowledge  that  they  did  pretty  well.  It 
was  n't  on  a  very  large  scale ;  bat  I  don't  see  how 
they  could  have  been  braver,  if  every  man  had 
been  multiplied  by  ten  thousand.  In  fact,  as  it 's 
going  to  be  all  the  same  thing  a  hundred  years 
from  now,  I  don't  know  but  I  'd  as  soon  be  one  of 
the  men  that  tried  to  take  Quebec  as  one  of  the 
men  that  did  take  Atlanta.  Of  course,  for  the 
present,  and  on  account  of  my  afflicted  family,  Mr. 
Arbuton,  I  'm  willing  to  be  what  and  where  I  am  ; 
but  just  see  what  those  fellows  did."  And  the 
colonel  drew  from  his  glowing  memory  of  Mrs. 
Ellison's  facts  a  brave  historical  picture  of  Arnold's 
expedition.  "  And  now  we  're  going  to-morrow 
morning  to  look  up  the  scene  of  the  attack  on 
the  31st  of  December.  Kitty,  sing  something." 

At  another  time  Kitty  might  have  hesitated  ; 
but  that  evening  she  was  so  at  rest  about  Mr. 
Arbuton,  so  sure  she  cared  nothing  for  his  lik 
ing  or  disliking  anything  she  did,  that  she  sat 
down  at  the  piano,  and  sang  a  number  of  songs, 
which  I  suppose  were  as  unworthy  the  cultivated 
ear  as  any  he  had  heard.  But  though  they  were 
given  with  an  untrained  voice  and  a  touch  as  little 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  159 

skilled  as  might  be,  they  pleased,  or  else  the  singer 
pleased.  The  simple-hearted  courage  of  the  per 
formance  would  alone1  have  made  it  charming  ; 
and  Mr.  Arbutpn  had  no  reason  to  ask  himself 
how  he  should  like  it  in  Boston,  if  he  were  mar 
ried,  and  should  hear  it  from  his  wife  there.  Yet 
when  a  young  man  looks  at  a  young  girl  or  listens 
to  her,  a  thousand  vagaries  possess  his  mind,  — 
formless  imaginations,  lawless  fancies.  The  ques 
tion  that  presented  itself  remotely,  like  pain  in 
a  dream,  dissolved  in  the  ripple  of  the  singer's 
voice,  and  left  his  revery  the  more  luxuriously 
untroubled  for  having  been. 

He  remembered,  after  saying  good-night,  that 
he  had  forgotten  something :  it  was  to  tell  them 
he  was  going  away. 


1GO  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

VIII. 

NEXT  MORNING. 


UEBEC  lay  shining  in  the  tender  oblique 
light  of  the  northern  sun  when  they 
passed  next  morning  through  the  Upper 
Town  market-place  and  took  their  way  towards 
Hope  Gate,  where  they  were  to  be  met  by  the  col 
onel  a  littla  later.  It  is  easy  for  the  alert  tourist 
to  lose  his  course  in  Quebec,  and  they,  who  were 
neither  hurried  nor  heedful,  went  easily  astray. 
But  the  street  into  which  they  had  wandered,  if 
it  did  not  lead  straight  to  Hope  Gate,  had  many 
merits,  and  was  very  characteristic  of  the  city. 
Most  of  the  houses  on  either  hand  were  low  struct 
ures  of  one  story,  built  heavily  of  stone  or  stuc 
coed  brick,  with  two  dormer-windows,  full  of  house- 
plants,  in  each  roof;  the  doors  were  each  painted 
of  a  livelier  color  than  the  rest  of  the  house,  and 
each  glistened  with  a  polished  brass  knob,  a  largo 
brass  knocker,  or  an  intricate  bell-pull  of  the  same 
resplendent  metal,  and  a  plate  bearing  the  owner's 
name  and  his  professional  title,  which  if  not  avocat 
was  sure  to  be  notaire,  so  well  is  Quebec  supplied 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  1G1 

with  those  ministers  of  the  law.  At  the  side  of 
each  house  was  a  porte-coj/iere,  and  in  this  a  smaller 
door.  The  thresholds  and  doorsteps  were  cov 
ered  with  the  neatest  and  brightest  oil-cloth  ;  the 
wooden  sidewalk  was  very  clean,  like  the  steep, 
roughly  paved  street  itself ;  and  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill  down  which  it  sloped  was  a  breadth  of  the  city 
wall,  pierced  for  musketry,  and,  past  the  corner 
of  one  of  the  houses,  the  half-length  of  cannon 
showing.  It  had  the  charm  of  those  ancient 
streets,  dear  to  Old- World  travel,  in  which  the 
past  and  the  present,  decay  and  repair,  peace  and 
war,  have  made  friends  in  an  effect  that  not  only 
wins  the  eye,  but,  however  illogically,  touches  the 
heart ;  and  over  the  top  of  the  wall  it  had  a 
stretch  of  such  landscape  as  I  know  not  what  Old- 
World  street  can  command:  the  St.  Lawrence, 
blue  and  wide ;  a  bit  of  the  white  village  of  Beau- 
port  on  its  bank  ;  then  a  vast  breadth  of  pale- 
green,  upward-sloping  meadows ;  then  the  purple 
heights ;  and  the  hazy  heaven  over  them.  Half 
way  down  this  happy  street  sat  the  artist  whom 
they  had  seen  before  in  the  court  of  the  Hotel 
Dieu  ;  he  was  sketching  something,  and  evoking 
the  curious  life  of  the  neighborhood.  Two  school 
boys  in  the  uniform  of  the  Seminary  paused  to 
look  at  him  as  they  loitered  down  the  pavement ; 


1G2  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

a  group  of  children  encircled  him ;  a  little  girl 
with  her  hair  in  blue  ribbons  talked  at  a  win 
dow  about  him  to  some  one  within  ;  a  young 
lady  opened  her  casement  and  gazed  furtively  at 
him  ;  a  door  was  set  quietly  ajar,  and  an  old 
grandam  peeped  out,  shading  her  eyes  with  her 
hand  ;  a  woman  in  deep  mourning  gave  his  sketch 
a  glance  as  she  passed  ;  a  calash  with  a  fat  Que- 
becker  in  it  ran  into  a  cart  driven  by  a  broad-hatted 
peasant-woman,  so  eager  were  both  to  know  what 
he  was  drawing ;  a  man  lingered  even  at  the  head 
of  the  street,  as  if  it  were  any  use  to  stop  there. 

As  Kitty  and  Mr.  Arbuton  passed  him,  the  art 
ist  glanced  at  her  with  the  smile  of  a  man  who 
believes  he  knows  how  the  case  stands,  and  she 
followed  his  eye  in  its  withdrawal  towards  the  bit 
he  was  sketching  :  an  old  roof,  and  on  top  of  this 
a  balcony,  shut  in  with  green  blinds  ;  yet  higher, 
a  weather-worn,  wood-colored  gallery,  pent-roofed 
and  balustered,  with  a  geranium  showing  through 
the  balusters ;  a  dormer-window  with  hook  and 
tackle,  beside  an  Oriental-shaped  pavilion  with  a 
shining  tin  dome,  —  a  picturesque  confusion  of 
forms  which  had  been,  apparently,  added  from 
time  to  time  without  design,  and  yet  were  full  of 
harmony.  The  unreasonable  succession  of  roofs 
had  lifted  the  top  far  above  the  level  of  the  sur- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

rounding  houses,  into  the  heart  of  the  morning 
light,  and  some  white  doves  circled  about  the  pa 
vilion,  or  nestled  cooing  upon  the  window-sill, 
where  a  young  girl  sat  and  sewed. 

"  Why,  it 's  Hilda  in  her  tower,"  said  Kitty, 
"of  course  !  And  this  is  just  the  kind  of  street 
for  such  a  girl  to  look  down  into.  It  does  n't  seem 
like  a  street  in  real  life,  does  it  ]  The  people  all 
look  as  if  they  had  stepped  out  of  stories,  and 
might  step  back  any  moment  ;  and  these  queer 
little  houses  :  they  're  the  very  places  for  things 
to  happen  in  !  " 

Mr.  Arbutou  smiled  forbearingly,  as  she  thought, 
at  this  burst,  but  she  did  not  care,  and  she  turned, 
at  the  bottom  of  the  street,  and  lingered  a  few- 
moments  for  another  look  at  the  whole  charming 
picture ;  and  then  he  praised  it,  and  said  that  the 
artist  was  making  a  very  good  sketch.  "  I  wonder 
Quebec  is  n't  infested  by  artists  the  whole  summer 
long,"  he  added.  "  They  go  about  hungrily  pick 
ing  up  bits  of  the  picturesque,  along  our  shores 
and  country  roads,  when  they  might  exchange 
their  famine  for  a  feast  by  coming  here." 

"  I  suppose  there  's  a  pleasure  in  finding  out  the 
small  graces  and  beauties  of  the  poverty-stricken 
subjects,  that  they  would  n't  have  in  better  ones, 
isn't  there]"  asked  Kitty.  "At  any  rate,  if  I 


164  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

were  to  write  a  story,  I  should  want  to  take  the 
slightest  sort  of  plot,  and  lay  the  scene  in  the 
dullest  kind  of  place,  and  then  bring  out  all  their 
possibilities.  I  '11  tell  you  a  book  after  my  own 
heart:  ' Details,' — just  the  history  of  a  week  in 
the  life  of  some  young  people  who  happen  together 
in  an  old  New  England  country-house  ;  nothing 
extraordinary,  little,  e very-day  things  told  so  ex 
quisitely,  and  all  fading  naturally  away  without 
any  particular  result,  only  the  full  meaning  of 
everything  brought  out." 

"  And  don't  you  think  it 's  rather  a  sad  ending 
for  all  to  fade  away  without  any  particular  result  ?" 
asked  the  young  man,  stricken  he  hardly  knew 
how  or  where.  "  Besides,  I  always  thought  that 
the  author  of  that  book  found  too  much  mean  in"1 

O 

in  everything.  He  did  for  men,  I  'm  sure  ;  but  I 
believe  women  are  different,  and  see  much  more 
than  we  do  in  a  little  space." 

"  '  Why  has  not  man  a  microscopic  eye  V 
For  this  plain  reason,  man  is  not  a  fly,' 

nor  a  woman,"  mocked  Kitty.  "  Have  you  read 
his  other  books  1 " 

"  Yes." 

"  Arc  n't  they  delightful  ?  " 

"  They  're  very  well  ;  and  I  always  wondered 
he  could  write  them.  He  does  n't  look  it." 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  1G5 

"0,  have  you  ever  seen  him]" 

"  He  lives  in  Boston,  you  know." 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  but—  Kitty  could  not  go  on  and 
say  that  she  had  not  supposed  authors  consorted 
with  creatures  of  common  clay  ;  and  Mr.  Arbuton, 
who  was  the  constant  guest  of  people  who  would 
have  thought  most  authors  sufficiently  honored  in 
being  received  among  them  to  meet  such  men  as  he, 
was  very  far  from  guessing  what  was  in  her  mind. 

He  waited  a  moment  for  her,  and  then  said, 
"  He  's  a  very  ordinary  sort  of  man,  —  not  what 
one  would  exactly  call  a  gentleman,  you  know,  in 
his  belongings,  —  and  yet  his  books  have  nothing 
of  the  shop,  nothing  professionally  literary,  about 
them.  It  seems  as  if  almost  any  of  us  might 
have  written  them." 

Kitty  glanced  quickly  at  him  to  see  if  he  were 
jesting  ;  but  Mr.  Arbuton  was  not  easily  given  to 
irony,  and  he  was  now  very  much  in  earnest  about 
drawing  on  his  light  overcoat,  which  he  had  hith 
erto  carried  on  his  arm  with  that  scrupulous 
consideration  for  it  which  was  not  dandyism,  but 
part  of  his  self-respect ;  apparently,  as  an  overcoat, 
he  cared  nothing  for  it ;  as  the  overcoat  of  a  man 
of  his  condition  he  cared  everything  ;  and  now, 
though  the  sun  was  so  bright  on  the  open  spaces,  in 
these  narrow  streets  the  garment  was  comfortable. 


166  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

At  another  time,  Kitty  would  have  enjoyed  the 
care  with  which  he  smoothed  it  about  his  person, 
but  this  profanation  of  her  clearest  ideals  made  the 
moment  serious.  Her  pulse  quickened,  and  she 
said,  "  I  'm  afraid  I  can't  enter  into  jour  feelings. 
I  was  n't  taught  to  respect  the  idea  of  a  gentleman 
very  much.  I  've  often  heard  my  uncle  say  that, 
at  the  best,  it  was  a  poor  excuse  for  not  being  just 
honest  and  just  brave  and  just  kind,  and  a  false 
pretence  of  being  something  more.  I  believe,  if 
I  were  a  man,  I  should  n't  want  to  be  a  gentle 
man.  At  any  rate,  I  'd  rather  be  the  author  of 
those  books,  which  any  gentleman  might  have 
written,  than  all  the  gentlemen  who  did  n't,  put 
together." 

In  the  career  of  her  indignation  she  had  uncon 
sciously  hurried  her  companion  forward  so  swiftly 
that  they  had  reached  Hope  Gate  as  she  spoke, 
and  interrupted  the  revery  in  which  Colonel  Elli 
son,  loafing  up  against  the  masonry,  was  contem 
plating  the  sentry  in  his  box. 

"  You  'd  better  not  overheat  yourself  so  early  in 
the  day,  Kitty,"  said  her  cousin,  serenely,  with  a 
glance  at  her  flushed  face ;  "  this  expedition  is  not 
going  to  be  any  joke." 

Now  that  Prescott  Gate,  by  which  so  many 
thousands  of  Americans  have  entered  Quebec  since 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  16  7 

Arnold's  excursionists  failed  to  do  so,  is  demolished, 
there  is  nothing  left  so  picturesque  and  character 
istic  as  Hope  Gate,  and  I  doubt  if  anywhere  in 
Europe  there  is  a  more  mediaeval-looking  bit  of 
military  architecture.  The  heavy  stone  gateway 
is  black  with  age,  and  the  gate,  which  has  prob 
ably  never  been  closed  in  our  century,  is  of  massive 
frame  set  thick  with  mighty  bolts  and  spikes.  The 
wall  here  sweeps  along  the  brow  of  the  crag  on 
which  the  city  is  built,  and  a  steep  street  drops 
down,  by  stone-parapeted  curves  and  angles,  from 
the  Upper  to  the  Lower  Town,  where,  in  1775, 
nothing  but  a  narrow  lane  bordered  the  St.  Law 
rence.  A  considerable  breadth  of  land  has  since 
been  won  from  the  river,  and  several  streets  and 
many  piers  now  stretch  between  this  alley  and  the 
water ;  but  the  old  Sault  au  Matelot  still  crouches 
and  creeps  along  under  the  shelter  of  the  city  wall 
and  the  overhanging  rock,  which  is  thickly  bearded 
with  weeds  and  grass,  and  trickles  with  abundant 
moisture.  It  must  be  an  ice-pit  in  winter,  aild  I 
should  think  it  the  last  spot  on  the  continent  for 
the  summer  to  find ;  but  when  the  summer  has  at 
last  found  it,  the  old  Sault  au  Matelot  puts  on  a 
vagabond  air  of  Southern  leisure  and  abandon,  not 
to  be  matched  anywhere  out  of  Italy.  Looking 
from  that  jutting  rock  near  Hope  Gate,  behind 


168  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

which  the  defeated  Americans  took  refuge  from 
the  fire  of  their  enemies,  the  vista  is  almost  unique 
for  a  certain  scenic  squalor  and  gypsy  luxury  of 
color :  sag-roofed  barns  and  stables,  and  weak- 
backed,  sunken-chested  workshops  of  every  sort 
lounge  along  in  tumble-down  succession,  and  lean 
up  against  the  cliff  in  every  imaginable  posture  of 
worthlessness  and  decrepitude  ;  light  wooden  gal 
leries  cross  to  them  from  the  second  stories  of  the 
houses  which  back  upon  the  alley ;  and  over  these 
galleries  flutters,  from  a  labyrinth  of  clothes-lines, 
a  variety  of  bright-colored  garments  of  all  ages, 
sexes,  and  conditions ;  while  the  footway  under 
neath  abounds  in  gossiping  women,  smoking  men, 
idle  poultry,  cats,  children,  and  large,  indolent 
Newfoundland  dogs. 

"  It  was  through  this  lane  that  Arnold's  party 
advanced  almost  to  the  foot  of  Mountain  Street, 
where  they  were  to  be  joined  by  Montgomery's 
force  in  an  attempt  to  surprise  Prescott  Gate,"  said 
the*  colonel,  with  his  unerring  second-hand  history. 

"  '  You  that  will  follow  me  to  this  attempt,' 

*  Wait  till  you  see  the  whites  of  their  eyes,  and 
then  fire  low,'  and  so  forth.  By  the  way,  do  you 
suppose  anybody  did  that  at  Bunker  Hill,  Mr. 
Arbuton  1  Come,  you  're  a  Boston  man.  My  ex- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  1G9 

perience  is  that  recruits  chivalrously  fire  into  the 
air  without  waiting1  to  see  the  enemy  at  all,  let 
alone  the  whites  of  their  eyes.  Why  !  are  n't  you 
coming]"  he  asked,  seeing  no  movement  to  follow 
in  Kitty  or  Mr.  Arbuton. 

"  It  does  n't  look  very  pleasant  under  foot, 
Dick,"  suggested  Kitty. 

"  Well,  upon  my  word !  Is  this  your  uncle's 
niece  ]  I  shall  never  dare  to  report  this  panic  at 
Eriecreek." 

"  I  can  see  the  whole  length  of  the  alley,  and 
there  's  nothing  in  it  but  chickens  and  domestic 
animals." 

"Very  well,  as  Fanny  says;  when  Uncle  Jack 
—  he  's  your  uncle  —  asks  you  about  every  inch  of 
the  ground  that  Arnold's  men  were  demoralized 
over,  I  hope  you  '11  know  what  to  say." 

Kitty  laughed  and  said  she  should  try  a  little 
invention,  if  her  Uncle  Jack  came  down  to  inches. 

"  All  right,  Kitty ;  you  can  go  along  St.  Paul 
Street,  there,  and  Mr.  Arbuton  and  I  will  explore 
the  Sault  au  Matelot,  and  come  out  upon  you, 
covered  with  glory,  at  the  other  end." 

"  I  hope  it  '11  be  glory,"  said  Kitty,  with  a  glance 
at  the  lane,  "  but  I  think  it 's  more  likely  to  be 
feathers  and  chopped  straw.  —  Good  by,  Mr.  Arbu 
ton." 

8 


170  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  .answered  the  young  mai\ 
"  I  'm  going  with  you." 

The  colonel  feigned  indignant  surprise,  and 
marched  briskly  down  the  Sault  au  Matelot  alone, 
whilD  the  others  took  their  way  through  St.  Paul 
Street  in  the  same  direction,  amidst  the  bustle  and 
business  of  the  port,  past  the  banks  and  great  com 
mercial  houses,  with  the  encounter  of  throngs  of 
seafaring  faces  of  many  nations,  and,  at  the  corner 
of  St.  Peter  Street,  a  glimpse  of  the  national  flag 
thrown  out  from  the  American  Consulate,  which 
intensified  for  untravelled  Kitty  her  sense  of  re 
moteness  from  her  native  land.  At  length  they 
turned  into  the  street  now  called  Sault  an  Matelot, 
into  which  opens  the  lane  once  bearing  that  name, 
and  strolled  idly  along  in  the  cool  shadow,  silence, 
and  solitude  of  the  street.  She  was  strangely 
released  from  the  constraint  which  Mr.  Arbuton 
usually  put  upon  her.  A  certain  defiant  ease 
filled  her  heart ;  she  felt  and  thought  whatever 
she  liked,  for  the  first  time  in  many  days ;  while 
he  went  puzzling  himself  with  the  problem  of 
a  young  lady  who  despised  gentlemen,  and  yet 
remained  charming  to  him. 

A  mighty  marine  smell  of  oakum  and  salt-fish 
was  in  the  air,  and  "0,"  sighed  Kitty,  "does  n't 
it  make  you  long  for  distant  seas  1  Should  n't  you 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  171 

like  to  be  shipwrecked  for  half  a  day  or  so,  Mr. 
Arbuton  1 " 

"  Yes  ;  yes,  certainly,"  he  replied  absently,  and 
•wondered  what  she  laughed  at.  The  silence  of 
the  place  was  broken  only  by  the  noise  of  coopering 
which  seemed  to  be  going  on  in  every  other  house  ; 
the  solitude  relieved  only  by  the  Newfoundland 
dogs  that  stretched  themselves  upon  the  thresh 
olds  of  the  cooper-shops.  The  monotony  of  these 
shops  and  dogs  took  Kitty's  humor,  and  as  they 
went  slowly  by  she  made  a  jest  of  them,  as  she 
used  to  do  with  things  she  saw. 

"  But  here  's  a  door  without  a  dog  !  "  she  said, 
presently.  "  This  can't  be  a  genuine  cooper-shop, 
of  course,  without  a  dog.  0,  that  accounts  for  it, 
perhaps  !  "  she  added,  pausing  before  the  threshold, 
and  glancing  up  at  a  sign  —  "Academic  commerciale 
et  litteraire  "  —  set  under  an  upper  window.  What 
a  curious  place  for  a  seat  of  learning !  What  do 
you  suppose  is  the.connection  between  cooper-shops 
and  an  academical  education,  Mr.  Arbuton  ? " 

She  stood  looking  up  at  the  sign  that  moved  her 
mirth,  and  swinging  her  shut  parasol  idly  to  and 
fro,  while  a  light  of  laughter  played  over  her  face. 

Suddenly  a  shadow  seemed  to  dart  betwixt  her 
and  the  open  doorway,  Mr.  Arbuton  was  hurled 
violently  against  her,  and,  as  she  struggled  to  keep 


172  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

her  footing  under  the  shock,  she  saw  him  bent  over 
a  furious  dog,  that  hung  from  the  breast  of  his 
overcoat,  while  he  clutched  its  throat  with  both 
his  hands. 

He  met  the  terror  of  her  face  with  a  quick 
glance.  "  I  beg  your  pardon ;  don't  call  out, 
please,"  he  said.  But  from  within  the  shop  came 
loud  cries  and  maledictions,  "  0  nom  de  Dieu  ! 
c'est  le  boule-dogue  du  capitaine  anglais ! "  with 
appalling  screams  for  help ;  and  a  wild,  uncouth 
little  figure  of  a  man,  bareheaded,  horror-eyed, 
came  flying  out  of  the  open  door.  He  wore  a 
cooper's  apron,  and  he  bore  in  one  hand  a  red-hot 
iron,  which,  with  continuous  clamor,  he  dashed 
against  the  muzzle  of  the  hideous  brute.  With 
out  a  sound  the  dog  loosed  his  grip,  and,  dropping 
to  the  ground,  fled  into  the  obscurity  of  the  shop, 
as  silently  as  he  had  launched  himself  out  of  it, 
while  Kitty  yet  stood  spell-bound,  and  before  the 
crowd  that  the  appeal  of  Mr.  Arbuton's  rescuer 
had  summoned  could  see  what  had  happened. 

Mr.  Arbuton  lifted  himself,  and  Jookcd  angrily 
round  upon  the  gaping  spectators,  who  began,  one  by 
one,  to  take  in  their  heads  from  their  windows  and 
to  slink  back  to  their  thresholds  as  if  they  had 
been  guilty  of  something  much  worse  than  a  desire 
to  succor  a  human  being  in  peril. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  173 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  said  Mr.  Arbuton,  "  what  an 
abominable  scene  ! "  His  face  was  deadly  pale,  as 
he  turned  from  these  insolent  intruders  to  his 
deliverer,  whom  he  saluted,  with  a  "  Merci  bieu  !  " 
spoken  in  a  cold,  steady  voice.  Then  he  drew  off 
his  overcoat,  which  had  beju  torn  bv  the  dog's 
teeth  and  irreparably  dishonored  in  the  encounter. 
He  looked  at  it  shuddering,  with  a  countenance  of 
intense  disgust,  and  made  a  motion  as  if  to  hurl  it 
into  the  street.  But  his  eye  again  fell  upon  the 
cooper's  squalid  little  figure,  as  he  stood  twist 
ing  his  hands  into  his  apron,  and  with  voluble 
eagerness  protesting  that  it  was  not  his  dog,  but 
that  of  the  English  ship-captain,  who  had  left  it 
with  him,  and  whom  he  had  many  a  time  besought 
to  have  the  beast  killed.  Mr.  Arbuton,  who  seemed 
not  to  hear  what  he  was  saying,  or  to  be  so  absorbed 
in  something  else  as  not  to  consider  whether  he 
was  to  blame  or  not,  broke  in  upon  him  in  French  : 
"  You  've  done  me  the  greatest  service.  I  cannot 
repay  you,  but  you  must  take  this,"  he  said,  as  he 
thrust  a  bank-note  into  the  little  man's  grinw  hand. 

"  0,  but  it  is  too  much  !  But  it  is  like  a  mon 
sieur  so  brave,  so  — 

"  Hush  !  It  was  nothing-,"  interrupted  Mr.  Ar 
buton  again.  Then  he  threw  his  overcoat  upon  the 
man's  shoulder.  "If  you  will  do  me  the  pleasure 


174  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

to  receive  this  also  1  Perhaps  you  can  make  use 
of  it." 

"Monsieur  heaps  me  with  benefits;  —  mon 
sieur—  "  began  the  bewildered  cooper;  but  Mr. 
Arbuton  turned  abruptly  away  from  him  toward 
Kitty,  who  trembled  at  having  shared  the  guilt  of 
the  other  spectators,  and  seizing  her  hand,  he  placed 
it  on  his  arm,  where  he  held  it  close  as  he  strode 
away,  leaving  his  deliverer  planted  in  the  middle 
of  the  sidewalk  and  staring  after  him.  She  scarcely 
dared  ask  him  if  he  were  hurt,  as  she  found  herself 
doing  now  with  a  faltering  voice. 

"  No,  I  believe  not,"  he  said  with  a  glance  at 
the  frock-coat,  which  was  buttoned  across  his 
chest  and  was  quite  intact;  and  still  he  strode 
on,  with  a  quick  glance  at  every  threshold  which 
did  not  openly  declare  a  Newfoundland  dog. 

It  had  all  happened  so  suddenly,  and  in  so  brief 
a  time,  that  she  might  well  have  failed  to  under 
stand  it,  even  if  she  had  seen  it  all.  It  was  barely 
intelligible  to  Mr.  Arbuton  himself,  who,  as  Kitty 
had  loitered  mocking  and  laughing  before  the  door 
of  the  shop,  chanced  to  see  the  dog  crouched  with 
in,  and  had  only  time  to  leap  forward  and  receive 
the  cruel  brute  on  his  breast  as  it  flung  itself  at 
her. 

He  had  not  thought  of  the  danger  to  himself  in 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  1<5 

what  he  hat!  done.  He  knew  that  he  was  unhurt,  /V 
but  he  did  not  care  for  that. ;  he  cared  only  that 
she  was  safe;  and  as  he  pressed  her  hand  tight 
against  his  heart,  there  passed  through  it  a  thrill 
of  inexpressible  tenderness,  a  quick,  passionate 
sense  of  possession,  a  rapture  as  of  having  won  her 
and  made  her  his  own  forever,  by  saving  her  from 
that  horrible  risk.  The  maze  in  which  he  had  but 
now  dwelt  concerning  her  seemed  an  obsolete  fri-  /t-H 
volity  of  an  alien  past ;  all  the  cold  doubts  and  hin 
dering  scruples  which  he  had  felt  from  the  first 
were  gone ;  gone  all  his  care  for  his  world.  His 
world  \  In  that  supreme  moment,  there  was  no 
world  but  in  the  tender  eyes  at  which  he  looked 
down  with  a  glance  which  she  knew  not  how  to 
interpret. 

She  thought  that  his  pride  was  deeply  wounded  / 
at  the  ignominy  of  his  adventure,  — for  she  was 
sure,  he  would  care  more  for  that  than  for  the 
danger,  —  and  that  if  she  spoke  of  it  she  might 
add  to  the  angry  pain  he  felt.  As  they  hurried 
along  she  waited  for  him  to  speak,  but  he  did  not ; 
though  always,  as  he  looked  down  at  her  with  that 
strange  look,  he  seemed  about  to  speak. 

Presently  she  stopped,  and,  withdrawing  her 
hand  from  his  arm,  she  cried,  "  Why,  we  've  for 
gotten  my  cousin ! " 


176  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"0 —  yes!  "said  Mr.  Arburton  with  a  vacant 
smile. 

Looking  back  they  saw  the  colonel  standing  on 
the  pavement  near  the  end  of  the  old  Sault  an 
Matelot,  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  stead 
fastly  staring  at  them.  He  did  not  relax  the 
severity  of  his  gaze  when  they  returned  to  join 
him,  and  appeared  to  find  little  consolation  in 
Kitty's  "0  Dick,  I  forgot  all  about  you,"  given 
with  a  sudden,  inexplicable  laugh,  interrupted  and 
renewed  as  some  ludicrous  image  seemed  to  come 
and  go  in  her  mind. 

"  Well,  this  may  be  very  flattering,  Kitty,  but  it 
is  n't  altogether  comprehensible,"  said  he,  with  a 
keen  glance  at  both  their  faces.  "I  don't  know 
what  you  '11  say  to  Uncle  Jack.  It  's  not  forget 
ting  me  alone  :  it 's  forgetting  the  whole  American 
expedition  against  Quebec." 

The  colonel  waited  for  some  reply ;  but  Kitty 
dared  not  attempt  an  explanation,  and  Mr.  Arbu- 
ton  was  not  the  man  to  seem  to  boast  of  his  share 
of  the  adventure  by  telling  what  had  happened, 
even  if  he  had  cared  at  that  moment  to  do  so.  Her 
very  ignorance  of  what  he  had  dared  for  her  only 
confirmed  his  new  sense  of  possession  ;  and,  if  ho 
could,  he  would  not  have  marred  the  pleasure  ho 
felt  by  making  her  grateful  yet,  sweet  as  that 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  177 

might  be  in  its  time.  Now  he  liked  to  keep  his 
knowledge,  to  have  had  her  unwitting  compassion, 
to  hear  her  pour  out  her  unwitting  relief  in  this 
laugh,  while  he  superiorly  permitted  it. 

"  I  don't  understand  this  thin,"  said  ' 


through  whose  dense,  masculine  intelligence  some 
suspicions  of  love-making  were  beginning  to  pierce. 
But  he  dismissed  them  as  absurd,  and  added, 
"  However,  I  'm  willing  to  forgive,  and  you  've 
done  the  forgetting  ;  and  all  that  I  ask  now  is  the 
pleasure  of  your  company  on  the  spot  where  Mont 
gomery  fell.  Fanny  '11  never  believe  I  Ve  found 
it  unless  you  go  with  me,"  he  appealed,  finally. 

"  0,  we  '11  go,  by  all  means,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton, 
unconsciously  speaking,  as  by  authority,  for  both. 

They  came  into  busier  streets  of  the  Port  again, 
and  then  passed  through  the  square  of  the  Lower 
Town  Market,  with  the  market-house  in  the  midst, 
the  shops  and  warehouses  on  either  side,  the  long 
row  of  tented  booths  with  every  kind  of  peasant- 
wares  to  sell,  and  the  wide  stairway  dropping  to 
the  river  which  brought  the  abundance  of  the 
neighboring  country  to  the  mart.  The  whole 
place  was  alive  with  country-folk  in  carts  and  citi 
zens  on  foot.  At  one  point  a  gayly  painted  wagon 
was  drawn  up  in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  people  to 
whom  a  quackish-faced  Yankee  was  hawking,  in 
8*  L 


178  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

his  own  personal  French,  an  American  patent- 
medicine,  and  making  his  audience  giggle.  lie- 
cause  Kitty  was  amused  at  this,  Mr.  Arbuton 
found  'it  the  drollest  thing  imaginable,  but  saw 
something  yet  droller  when  she  made  the  colonel 
look  at  a  peasant,  standing  in  one  corner  beside  a 
basket  of  fowls,  which  a  woman,  coming  up  to  1)11}% 
examined  as  if  the  provision  were  some  natural 
curiosity,  while  a  crowd  at  once  gathered  round. 

"  It  requires  a  considerable  population  to  make 
a  bargain,  up  here,"  remarked  the  colonel.  "  I 
suppose  they  turn  out  the  garrison  when  they  sell 
a  beef."  For  both  buyer  and  seller  seemed  to 
take  advice  of  the  bystanders,  who  discussed  and 
inspected  the  different  fowls  as  if  nothing  so  novel 
as  poultry  had  yet  fallen  in  their  way. 

At  last  the  peasant  himself  took  up  the  fowls 
and  carefully  scrutinized  them. 

"  Those  chickens,  it  seems,  never  happened  to 
catch  his  eye  before,"  interpreted  Kitty  ;  and  Mr. 
Arbuton,  who  was  usually  very  restive  during  such 
banter,  smiled  as  if  it  were  the  most  admirable  fool 
ing,  or  the  most  precious  wisdom,  in  the  world. 
He  made  them  wait  to  see  the  bargain  out,  and 
could,  apparently,  have  lingered  there  forever. 

But  the  colonel  had  a  conscience  about  Mont 
gomery,  and  he  hurried  them  away,  on  past  the 


.1   Chance  Acquaintance.  179 

Queen's  Wharf,  and  down  the  Cove  Road  to  that 
point  where  the  scarped  and  rugged  breast  of  the 
cliff  bears  the  sign,  "  Here  fell  Montgomery," 
though  he  really  fell,  not  half-way  up  the  height, 
but  at  the  foot  of  it,  where  stood  the  battery  that 
forbade  his  juncture  with  Arnold  at  Prescott  Gate. 

A  certain  wildness  yet  possesses  the  spot :  the 
front  of  the  crag,  topped  by  the  high  citadel- wall, 
is  so  grim,  and  the  few  tough  evergreens  that  cling 
to  its  clefts  are  torn  and  twisted  by  the  winter 
blasts,  and  the  houses  are  decrepit  with  age,  show 
ing  here  and  there  the  scars  of  the  frequent  fires 
that  sweep  the  Lower  Town. 

It  was  quite  useless  :  neither  the  memories  of 
the  place  nor  their  setting  were  sufficient  to  engage 
the  wayward  thoughts  of  these  curiously  assorted 
pilgrims  ;  and  the  colonel,  after  some  attempts  to 
bring  the  matter  home  to  himself  and  the  others, 
was  obliged  to  abandon  Mr.  Arbuton  to  his  tender 
reveries  of  Kitty,  and  Kitty  to  her  puzzling  over 
the  change  in  Mr.  Arbuton.  His  complaisance 
made  her  uncomfortable  and  shy  of  him,  it  was  so 
strange  :  it  gave  her  a  little  shiver,  as  if  he  were 
behaving  undignifiedly. 

"  Well,  Kitty,"  said  the  colonel,  "  I  reckon 
Uncle  Jack  would  have  made  more  out  of  this 
than  we  've  done.  He  'd  have  had  their  geology 
out  of  these  rocks,  any  way." 


180  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

IX. 

MR.   ARBUTON'S  INFATUATION. 

]ITTY  went  as  usual  to  Mrs.  Ellison's 
room  after  her  walk,  but  she  lapsed 
into  a  deep  abstraction  as  she  sat  down 
beside  the  sofa. 

"  What  are  you  smiling  at  ? "  asked  Mrs.  Elli 
son,  after  briefly  supporting  her  abstraction. 

"  Was  I  smiling  1 "  asked  Kitty,  beginning  to 
laugh.  "I  did  n't  know  it." 

"  What  has  happened  so  very  funny  1 " 

"  Why,  I'  don't  know  whether  it 's  so  very  funny 
or  not.  I  believe  it  is  n't  funny  at  all." 

"  Then  what  makes  you  laugh  T' 

"  I  don't  know.     Was  I  —  " 

"  Now  don't  ask  me  if  you  were  laughing,  Kitty. 
It 's  a  little  too  much.  You  can  talk  or  not,  as 
you  choose ;  but  I  don't  like  to  be  turned  into 
ridicule." 

"  0  Fanny,  how  can  you  1  I  was  thinking  about 
something  very  different.  But  I  don't  see  how  I 
can  tell  you,  without  putting  Mr.  Arbuton  in  a 
ludicrous  light,  and  it  isn't  quite  fair." 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  181 

"  You  're  very  careful  of  him,  all  at  once,"  said 
Mrs.  Ellison.  "  You  did  n't  seein  disposed  to  spare 
him  yesterday  so  much.  I  don't  understand  this 
sudden  conversion." 

Kitty  responded  with  a  fit  of  outrageous  laugh 
ter.  "  Now  I  see  I  must  tell  you,"  she  said,  and 
rapidly  recounted  Mr.  Arbuton's  adventure. 

"  Why,  1  never  knew  anything  so  cool  and  brave, 
Fanny,  and  I  admired  him  more  than  ever  I  did ; 
but  then  I  could  n't  help  seeing  the  other  side  of  it, 
you  know." 

"  What  other  side  1     I  don't  know." 

"  Well,  you  'd  have  had  to  laugh  yourself,  if 
you  'd  seen  the  lordly  way  he  dismissed  the  poor 
people  who  had  come  running  out  of  their  houses 
to  help  him,  and  his  stateliuess  in  rewarding  that 
little  cooper,  and  his  heroic  parting  from  his  cher 
ished  overcoat,  —  which  of  course  he  can't  replace 
in  Quebec,  —  and  his  absent-minded  politeness  in 
taking  my  hand  under  his  arm,  and  marching  off 
with  me  so  magnificently.  But  the  worst  thing, 
Fanny,"  —  and  she  bowed  herself  under  a  tempest 
of  long-pent  mirth,  —  "  the  worst  thing  was,  that 
the  iron,  you  know,  was  the  cooper's  branding- 
iron,  and  I  had  a  vision  of  the  dog  carrying  about 
on  his  nose,  as  long  as  he  lived,  the  monogram 
that  marks  the  cooper's  casks  as  holding  a  certain 
number  of  gallons  —  " 


182  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Kitty,  don't  bo  —  sacrilegious  !  "  cried  Mrs. 
Ellison. 

"  No,  I  'm  not,"  she  retorted,  gasping  and  pant- 
:.ng.  "  I  never  respected  Mr.  Arbuton  so  much, 
and  you  say  yourself  I  have  n't  shown  myself  so 
careful  of  him  before.  But  I  never  was  so  glad  to 
see  Dick  in  my  life,  and  to  have  some  excuse  for 
laughing.  I  did  n't  dare  to  speak  to  Mr.  Arbuton 
about  it,  for  he  could  n't,  if  he  had  tried,  have  let 
me  laugh  it  out  and  be  done  with  it.  I  trudged 
demurely  along  by  his  side,  and  neither  of  us  men 
tioned  the  matter  to  Dick,"  she  concluded  breath 
lessly.  Then,  "  I  don't  know  why  I  should  tell 
you  now  ;  it  seems  wicked  and  cruel,"  she  said 
penitently,  almost  pensively. 

Mrs.  Ellison  had  not  been  amused.  She  said, 
"  Well,  Kitty,  in  some  girls  I  should  say  it  was 
quite  heartless  to  do  as  you  've  done." 

"  It 's  heartless  in  me,  Fanny  ;  and  you  need  n't 
say  such  a  thing.  I  'm  sure  I  did  n't  utter  a  syl 
lable  to  wound  him,  and  just  before  that  he  'd 
been  very  disagreeable,  and  I  forgave  "him  because 
I  thought  he  was  mortified.  And  you  need  n't 
say  that  I  've  no  feeling " ;  and  thereupon  she 
rose,  and,  putting  her  hands  into  her  cousin's, 
"  Fanny,"  she  cried,  vehemently,  "  I  have  been 
heartless.  I  'm  afraid  I  have  n't  shown  any  syin- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  183 

pathy  or  consideration.  I'm  afraid  I  must  have 
seemed  dreadfully  callous  and  hard.  I  ought  nrt 
to  have  thought  of  anything  but  the  danger  to 
him  ;  and  it  seams  to  me  now  I  scarcely  thought 
of  that  at  all.  0,  how  rude  it  was  of  me  to  see 
anything  funny  in  it  !  What  can  I  do]" 

"Don't  go  crazy,  at  any  rate,  Kitty.  He 
does  n't  know  that  you  've  been  laughing  about 
him.  You  need  n't  do  anything." 

"  0  yes,  I  need.  He  does  n't  know  that  I  've 
been  laughing  about  him  to  you ;  but,  don't  you 
see,  I  laughed  when  we  met  Dick ;  and  what  can 
he  think  of  that  I " 

"  He  just  thinks  you  were  nervous,  I  sup 
pose." 

"0,  do  you  suppose  he  does,  Fanny  ?  0,  I  wish 
I  could  believe  that !  0,  I  'm  so  horribly  ashamed 
of  myself!  And  here  yesterday  I  was  criticising 
him  for  being  unfeeling,  and  now  I  've  been  a 
thousand  times  worse  than  he  has  ever  been,  or 
ever  could  be  !  0  dear,  dear,  dear  !  " 

"  Kitty  !  hush  !  exclaimed  Mrs.  Ellison  ;  "  you 
run  on  like  a  wild  thing,  and  you  're  driving  me 
distracted,  by  not  being  like  yourself." 

"  0,  it 's  very  well  for  you  to  be  so  calm  ;  but  if 
you  did  n't  know  what  to  do,  you  would  n't." 

"  Yes,  I  would ;  I  don't,  and  I  ain." 


184  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

"But  what  shall  I  do]"  And  Kitty  plucked 
away  the  hands  which  Fanny  had  been  holding 
and  wrung  them.  "  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  can  do," 
she  suddenly  added,  while  a  gleam  of  relief  dawned 
upon  her  face  :  "I  can  bear  all  his  disagreeable 
ways  after  this,  as  long  as  he  stays,  and  not  say 
anything  back.  Yes,  I  '11  put  up  with  everything. 
I  '11  be  as  meek  !  He  may  patronize  me  and  snub 
me  and  put  me  in  the  wrong  as  much  as  he 
pleases.  And  then  he  won't  be  approaching  my 
behavior.  0  Fanny  !  " 

Upon  this,  Mrs.  Ellison  said  that  she  was  going 
to  give  her  a  good  scolding  for  her  nonsense,  and 
pulled  her  down  and  kissed  her,  and  said  that  she 
had  not  done  anything,  and  was,  nevertheless,  con 
soled  at  her  resolve  to  expiate  her  offence  by  re 
specting  thenceforward  Mr.  Arbuton's  foibles  and 
prejudices. 

It  is  not  certain  how  far  Kitty  would  have  suc 
ceeded  in  her  good  purposes :  these  things,  so 
easily  conceived,  are  not  of  such  facile  execution ; 
she  passed  a  sleepless  night  of  good  resolutions 
and  schemes  of  reparation  ;  but,  fortunately  for 
her,  Mr.  Arbuton's  foibles  and  prejudices  seemed  to 
have  fallen  into  a  strange  abeyance.  The  change 
that  had  come  upon  him  that  day  remained  ;  he 
was  still  Mr.  Arbuton,  but  with  a  difference. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  185 

He  could  not  undo  his  whole  inherited  and  edu 
cated  being,  and  perhaps  no  chance  could  deeply 
affect  it  without  destroying  the  man.  He  con 
tinued  hopelessly  superior  to  Colonel  and  Mrs. 
Ellison ;  but  it  is  not  easy  to  love  a  woman  and 
not  seek,  at  least  before  marriage,  to  please  those 
dear  to  her.  Mr.  Arbuton  had  contested  his  pas 
sion  at  every  advance ;  he  had  firmly  set  his  face 
against  the  fancy  that,  at  the  beginning,  invested 
this  girl  with  a  charm ;  he  had  only  done  the 
things  afterwards  that  mere  civilization  required; 
he  had  suffered  torments  of  doubt  concerning  her 
fitness  for  himself  and  his  place  in  society  ;  he  was 
not  sure  yet  that  her  unknown  relations  were  not 
horribly  vulgar  people ;  even  yet,  he  was  almost 
wholly  ignorant  of  the  circumstances  and  con 
ditions  of  her  life.  But  now  he  saw  her  only  in 
the  enrapturing  light  of  his  daring  for  her  sake, 
of  a  self-devotion  that  had  seemed  to  make  her  his 
own ;  and  he  behaved  toward  her  with  a  lover's 
self-forgetf ulness,  —  or  something  like  it :  say  a 
perfect  tolerance,  a  tender  patience,  in  which  it 
would  have  been  hard  to  detect  the  lurking  shadow 
of  condescension. 

He  was  fairly  domesticated  with  the  family. 
Mrs.  Ellison's  hurt,  in  spite  of  her  many  impru 
dences,  was  decidedly  better,  and  sometimes  she 


186  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

made  a  ceremony  of  being  helped  down  from  her 
room  to  dinner  ;  but  she  always  had  tea  beside  her 
sofa,  and  he  with  the  others  drank  it  there.  Few 
hours  of  the  day  passed  in  which  they  did  not 
meet  in  that  easy  relation  which  establishes  itself 
among  people  sojourning  in  summer  idleness  under 
the  same  roof.  In  the  morning  he  saw  the  young 
girl  fresh  and  glad  as  any  flower  of  the  garden 
beneath  her  window,  while  the  sweet  abstraction 
of  her  maiden  dreams  yet  hovered  in  her  eyes. 
At  night  he  sat  with  her  beside  the  lamp  whose 
light,  illuming  a  little  world  within,  shut  out  the 
great  world  outside,  and  seemed  to  be  the  soft 
effulgence  of  her  presence,  as  she  sewed,  or  knit, 
or  read,  —  a  heavenly  spirit  of  home.  Sometimes 
he  heard  her  talking  with  her  cousin,  or  lightly 
laughing  after  he  had  said  good  night ;  once,  when 
he  woke,  she  seemed  to  be  looking  out  of  her  win 
dow  across  the  moonlight  in  the  Ursulines'  Garden 
while  she  sang  a  fragment  of  song.  To  meet  her 
on  the  stairs  or  in  the  narrow  entries ;  or  to  en 
counter-  her  at  the  doors,  and  make  way  for  her  to 
pass  with  a  jest  and  blush  and  nutter ;  to  sit  down 
at  table  with  her  three  times  a  day,  —  was  a 
potent  witchery.  There  was  a  rapture  in  her 
shawl  flung  over  the  back  of  a  chair ;  her  gloves, 
lying  light  as  fallen  leaves  on  the  table,  and  keep- 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  187 

in£  the  shape  of  her  hands,  were  full  of  winning 
character ;  and  all  the  more  unaccountably  they 
touched  his  heart  because  they  had  a  certain  care 
less,  sweet  shabbiness  about  the  finger-tips. 

He  found  himself  hanging  upon  her  desultory 
talk  with  Fanny  about  the  set  of  things  and  the 
agreement  of  colors.  There  was  always  more  or 
less  of  this  talk  going  on,  whatever  the  main  topic 
was,  for  continual  question  arose  in  the  minds  of  one 
or  other  lady  concerning  those  adaptations  of  Mrs. 
Ellison's  finery  to  the  exigencies  of  Kitty's  daily 
life.  They  pleased  their  innocent  hearts  with  the 
secrecy  of  the  aifair,  which,  in  the  concealments  it 
required,  the  sudden  difficulties  it  presented,  and 
the  guiltless  equivocations  it  inspired,  hai  the 
excitement  of  intrigue.  Nothing  could  have  been 
more  to  the  mind  of  Mrs.  Ellison  than  to  deck 
Kitty  for  this  perpetual  masquerade;  and,  since 
the  things  were  very  pretty,  and  Kitty  was  a  girl  in 
every  motion  of  her  being,  I  do  not  see  how  any 
thing  could  have  delighted  her  more  than  to  wear 
them.  Their  talk  effervesced  with  the  delicious 
consciousness  that  he  could  not  dream  of  what  was 
going  on,  and  babbled  over  with  mysterious  jests 
and  laughter,  which  sometimes  he  fearod  to  be  at 
his  expense,  and  so  joined  in,  and  made  them 
laugh  the  more  at  his  misconception.  He  went 


188  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

and  came  among  thorn  at  will ;  be  had  but  to  tap 
at  Mrs.  Ellison's  door,  and  some  voice  of  unaffected 
cordiality  welcomed  him  in  ;  he  had  but  to  ask, 
and  Kitty  was  frankly  ready  for  any  of  those 
strolls  about  Quebec  in  which  most  of  their  wak 
ing  hours  were  dreamed  away. 

The  gray  Lady  of  the  North  cast  her  spell  about 
them,  —  the  freshness  of  her  mornings,  the  still 
heat  of  her  middays,  the  slant,  pensive  radiance 
of  her  afternoons,  and  the  pale  splendor  of  her 
auroral  nights.  Never  was  city  so  faithfully  ex 
plored  ;  never  did  city  so  abound  in  objects  of 
interest ;  for  Kitty's  love  of  the  place  was  bound 
less,  and  his  love  for  her  was  inevitable  friendship 
with  this  adoptive  patriotism. 

"  I  did  n't  suppose  you  Western  people  cared 
for  these  things,"  he  once  said  ;  "  I  thought  your 
minds  were  set  on  things  new  and  square." 

"But  how  could  you  think  so?"  replied  Kitty, 
tolerantly.  "  It  's  because  we  have  so  many  new 
and  square  things  that  we  like  the  old  crooked 
ones.  I  do  believe  I  should  onjoy  Europe  even 
better  than  you.  There 's  a  forsaken  farm-house 
near  Eriecreek,  dropping  to  pieces  amongst  its  wild- 
grown  sweetbriers  and  quince-bushes,  that  I  used 
to  think  a  wonder  of  antiquity  because  it  was  bui^t 
in  1815.  Can't  you  imagine  how  I  must  feel  in 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  189 

a  city  like  this,  that  was  founded  nearly  three 
centuries  ago,  and  has  suffered  so  many  sieges  and 
captures,  and  looks  like  pictures  of  those  beautiful 
old  towns  I  can  never  see  1 " 

"0^  perhaps  you  will  see  them  some  day  !"  he 
said,  touched  by  her  fervor. 

"  I  don't  ask  it  at  present :  Quebec  's  enough. 
I  'm  in  love  with  the  place.  I  wish  I  never  had 
to  leave  it.  There  is  n't  a  crook,  or  a  turn,  or  a 
tin-roof,  or  a  dormer-window,  or  a  gray  stone  in  it 
that  is  n't  precious." 

Mr.  Arbuton  laughed.  "  Well,  you  shall  be 
sovereign  lady  of  Quebec  for  me.  Shall  we  have 
the  English  garrison  turned  out1?" 

"  No ;  not  unless  you  can  bring  back  Montcalm's 
men  to  take  their  places." 

This  might  be  as  they  sauntered  out  of  one  of 
the  city  gates,  and  strayed  through  the  Lower 
Town  till  they  should  chance  upon  some  poor,  bare- 
interiored  church,  with  a  few  humble  worshippers 
adoring  their  Saint,  with  his  lamps  alight  before 
his  picture  ;  or  as  they  passed  some  high  convent- 
wall,  and  caught  the  strange,  metallic  clang  of  the 
nuns'  voices  singing  their  hymns  within.  Some 
times  they  whiled  away  the  hours  on  the  Es 
planade,  breathing  its  pensive  sentiment  of  neglect 
and  incipient  decay,  and  pacing  up  and  down  over 


190  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

the  turf  athwart  the  slim  shadows  of  the  poplars  ; 
or,  with  comfortable  indifference  to  the  local  ob 
servances,  sat  in  talk  on  the  carriage  of  one  of  the 
burly,  uncared-for  guns,  while  the  spider  wove  his 
web  across  the  mortar's  mouth,  and  the  grass  nod 
ded  above  the  tumbled  pyramids  of  shot,  and  the 
children  raced  up  and  down,  and  the  nursery-maids 
were  wooed  of  the  dapper  sergeants,  and  the  red- 
coated  sentry  loitered  lazily  to  and  fro  before  his 
box.  On  the  days  of  the  music,  they  listened  to 
the  band  in  the  Governor's  Garden,  and  watched 
the  fine  world  of  the  old  capital  in  flirtation  with 
the  blond-whiskered  officers  ;  and  on  pleasant  nights 
they  mingled  with  the  citizen  throng  that  filled  the 
Durham  Terrace,  while  the  river  shaped  itself  in 
the  lights  of  its  shipping,  and  the  Lower  Town, 
with  its  lamps,  lay,  like  a  nether  firmament,  two 
hundred  feet  below  them,  and  Point  Levis  glittered 
and  sparkled  on  the  thither  shore,  and  in  the 
northern  sky  the  aurora  throbbed  in  swift  pulsa 
tions  of  violet  and  crimson.  They  liked  to  climb 
the  Break-Neck  Steps  at  Prescott  Gate,  dropping 
from  the  Upper  to  the  Lower  Town,  which  re 
minded  Mr.  Arbuton  of  Naples  and  Trieste,  and 
took  Kitty  with  the  unassociated  picturesqueness 
of  their  odd  shops  and  taverns,  and  their  lofty 
windows  green  \vith  house-plants.  They  would 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  191 

stop  and  look  up  at  the  geraniums  and  fuchsias, 
and  fall  a  thinking  of  far  different  things,  and  the 
friendly,  unbusy  people  would  come  to  their  doors 
and  look  up  with  them.  They  recognized  the 
handsome,  blond  young  man,  and  the  pretty,  gray- 
eyed  girl ;  for  people  in  Quebec  have  time  to  note 
strangers  who  linger  there,  and  Kitty  and  Mr.  Ar- 
buton  had  come  to  be  well-known  figures,  different 
from  the  fleeting  tourists  on  their  rounds ;  and, 
indeed,  as  sojourners  they  themselves  perceived 
their  poetic  distinction  from  mere  birds  of  pas 
sage. 

Indoors  they  resorted  much  to  the  little  entry- 
window  looking  out  on  the  Ursulines1  Aarden. 
Two  chairs  stood  confronted  there,  and  it  was  hard 
for  either  of  the  young  people  to  pass  them  with 
out  sinking  a  moment  into  one  of  them,  and  this 
appeared  always  to  charm  another  presence  into 
the  opposite  chair.  There  they  often  lingered  in 
the  soft  forenoons,  talking  in  desultory  phrase  of 
things  far  and  near,  or  watching,  in  long  silences, 
the  nuns  pacing  up  and  down  in  the  garden  below, 
and  waiting  for  the  pensive,  slender  nun,  and  the 
stout,  jolly  nun  whom  Kitty  had  adopted,  and 
whom  she  had  gayly  interpreted  to  him  as  an  alle 
gory  of  Life  in  their  quaint  inseparableness ;  and 
they  played  that  the  influence  of  one  or  other  nun 


192  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

was  in  the  ascendant,  according  as  their  own  talk 
was  gay  or  sad.  In  their  relation,  people  are  not 
so  different  from  children ;  they  like  the  same 
thing  over  and  over  again ;  they  like  it  the  better 
the  less  it  is  in  itself. 

At  times  Kitty  would  come  with  a  book  in  her 
hand  (one  finger  shut  in  to  keep  the  place),  — 
some  latest  novel,  or  a  pirated  edition  of  Long 
fellow,  recreantly  purchased  at  a  Quebec  bookstore; 
and  then  Mr.  Arbuton  must  ask  to  see  it ;  and  he 
read  romance  or  poetry  to  her  by  the  hour.  He 
showed  to  as  much  advantage  as  most  men  do  in 
the  serious  follies  of  wooing ;  and  an  influence 
which  he  could  not  defy,  or  would  not,  shaped  him 
to  all  the  sweet,  absurd  demands  of  the  affair. 
From  time  to  time,  recollecting  himself,  and  trying 
to  look  consequences  in  the  face,  he  gently  turned 
the  talk  upon  Eriecreek,  and  endeavored  to.possess 
himself  of  some  intelligible  image  of  the  place,  and 
of  Kitty's  home  and  friends.  Even  then,  the 
present  was  so  fair  and  full  of  content,  that  his 
thoughts,  when  they  reverted  to  the  future,  no 
longer  met  the  obstacles  that  had  made  him  recoil 
from  it  before.  Whatever  her  past  had  been,  he 
could  find  some  way  to  weaken  the  ties  that  bound 
her  to  it ;  a  year  or  two  of  Europe  would  leave  no 
trace  of  Eriecreek ;  without  effort  of  his,  her  life 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  193 

would  adapt  itself  to  his  own,  and  cease  to  be  a 
part  of  the  lives  of  those  people  there  ;  again  and 
again  his  amiable  imaginations  —  they  were  scarce 
ly  intents  —  accomplished  themselves  in  many  a 
swift,  fugitive  re  very,  while  the  days  went  by,  and 
the  shadow  of  the  ivy  in  the  window  at  which 
they  sat  fell,  in  moonlight  and  sunlight,  upon 
Kitty's  cheeks,  and  the  fuchsia  kissed  her  hair 
with  its  purple  and  crimson  blossom. 


104  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

X. 

MR.  ARBUTON  SPEAKS. 

JRS.  ELLISON  was  almost  well ;  she  had 
already  been  shopping  twice  in  the  Rue 
Fabrique,  and  her  recovery  was  now 
chiefly  retarded  by  the  dress-maker's  delays  in 
making  up  a  silk  too  precious  to  be  risked  in  the 
piece  with  the  customs  officers,  at  the  frontier. 
Moreover,  although  the  colonel  was  beginning  to 
chafe,  she  was  not  loath  to  linger  yet  a  few  days 
for  the  sake  of  an  affair  to  which  her  suffering  had 
been  a  willing  sacrifice.  In  return  for  her  inde 
fatigable  self-devotion,  Kitty  had  lately  done  very 
little.  She  ungratefully  shrunk  more  and  more 
from  those  confidences  to  which  her  cousin's 
speeches  covertly  invited  ;  she  openly  resisted  open 
attempts  upon  her  knowledge  of  facts.  If  she  was 
not  prepared  to  confess  everything  to  Fanny,  it 
was  perhaps  because  it  was  all  so  very  little,  or 
because  a  young  girl  has  not,  or  ought  not  to  have, 
a  mind  in  certain  matters,  or  else  knows  it  not, 
till  it  is  asked  her  by  the  one  first  authorized  to 
learn  it.  The  dream  in  which  she  lived  was  flat- 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  195 

tering  and  fair ;  and  it  wholly  contented  her 
imagination  while  it  hilled  her  consciousness.  It 
moved  from  phase  to  phase  without  the  harshness 
of  reality,  and  was  apparently  allied  neither  to  the 
future  nor  to  the  past.  She  herself  seemed  to 
have  no  more  fixity  or  responsibility  in  it  than  the 
heroine  of  a  romance. 

As  their  last  week  in  Quebec  drew  to  its  close, 
only  two  or  three  things  remained  for  them  to  do, 
as  tourists  ;  and  chief  among  the  few  unvisited 
shrines  of  sentiment  was  the  site  of  the  old  Jesuit 
mission  at  Sillery. 

"  It  won't  do  not  to  see  that,  Kitty,"  said  Mrs. 
Ellison,  who,  as  usual,  had  arranged  the  details  of 
the  excursion,  and  now  announced  them.  "  It  's 
one  of  the  principal  things  here,  and  your  Uncle 
Jack  would  never  be  satisfied  if  you  missed  it.  In 
fact,  it  's  a  shame  to  have  left  it  so  long.  I  can't 
go  with  you,  for  I  'm  saving  up  my  strength  for 
our  picnic  at  Chateau-Bigot  to-morrow  ;  and  I 
want  you,  Kitty,  to  see  that  the  colonel  sees  every 
thing.  I  've  had  trouble  enough,  goodness  knows, 
getting  the  facts  together  for  him."  This  was  as 
Kitty  and  Mr.  Arbuton  sat  waiting  in  Mrs.  Elli 
son's  parlor  for  the  delinquent  colonel,  who  had 
just  stepped  round  to  the  Hotel  St.  Louis  and  was 
to  be  back  presently.  But  the  moment  of  his 


19G  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

return  passed  ;  a  quarter-hour  of  grace  ;  a  half- 
hour  of  grim  magnanimity,  —  and  still  no  colonel.. 
Mrs.  Ellison  began  by  saying  that  it  was  perfectly 
abominable,  and  left  herself,  in  a  greater  extrem 
ity,  with  nothing  more  forcible  to  add  than  that  it 
was  too  provoking.  "  It  's  getting  so  late  now," 
she  said  at  last,  "  that  it  's  no  use  waiting  any 
longer,  if  you  mean  to  go  at  all,  to-day  ;  and  to 
day  's  the  only  day  you  can  go.  There,  you  'd 
better  drive  on  without  him.  I  can't  bear  to  have 
you  miss  it."  And,  thus  adjured,  the  younger 
people  rose  and  went. 

When  the  high-born  Noel  Brulart  de  Sillery, 
Knight  of  Malta  and  courtier  of  Marie  de  Medic-is, 
turned  from  the  vanities  of  this  world  and  became 
a  priest,  Canada  was  the  fashionable  mission  of  the 
day,  and  the  noble  neophyte  signalized  his  self- 
renunciation  by  giving  of  his  great  wealth  for  the 
conversion  of  the  Indian  heathen.  He  supplied 
the  Jesuits  with  money  to  maintain  a  religious 
establismcnt  near  Quebec  ;  and  the  settlement  of 
red  Christians  took  his  musical  name,  which  the 
region  still  keeps.  It  became  famous  at  once  as 
the  first  residence  of  the  Jesuits  and  the  nuns  of 
the  Hotel  Dieu,  who  wrought  and  suffered  for 
religion  there  amidst  the  terrors  of  pestilence, 
Iro([iiois,  and  winter.  It  was  the  scene  of  miracles 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  197 

and  martyrdoms,  and  marvels  of  many  .kinds,  and 
the  centre  of  the  missionary  efforts  among  the 
Indians.  Indeed,  few  events  of  the  picturesque 
early  history  of  Quebec  left  it  untouched  ;  andjt 
is  worthy  to  be  seen,  no  less  for  the  wild  beauty 
of  the  spot  than  for  its  heroical  memories.  About 
a  league  from  the  city,  where  the  irregular  wall 
of  rock  on  which  Quebec  is  built  recedes  from  the 
river,  and  a  grassy  space  stretches  between  the 
tide  and  the  foot  of  -the  woody  steep,  the  old  mis 
sion  and  the  Indian  village  once  stood ;  and  to 
this  day  there  yet  stands  the  stalwart  frame  of  the 
first  Jesuit  Kesidence,  modernized,  of  course,  and 
turned  to  secular  uses,  but  firm  as  of  old,  and 
good  for  a  century  to  come.  All  round  is  a  world 
of  lumber,  and  rafts  of  vast  extent  cover  the  face 
of  the  waters  in  the  ample  cove,  —  one  of  many 
that  indent  the  shore  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  A 
careless  village  straggles  along  the  roadside  and 
the  river's  margin  ;  huge  lumber-ships  are  loading 
for  Europe  in  the  stream  ;  a  town  shines  out  of 
the  woods  on  the  opposite  shore  ;  nothing  but  a 
friendly  climate  is  needed  to  make  this  one  of  the 
most  charming  scenes  the  heart  could  imagine. 

Kitty  and  Mr.  Arbuton  drove  out  towards  Sil- 
lery  by  the  St.  Louis  Road,  and  already  the  jealous 
foliage  that  hides  the  pretty  villas  and  stately 


198  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

places  of  that  aristocratic  suburb  was  tinged  in 
here  and  there  a  bough  with  autumnal  crimson  or 
yellow  ;  in  the  meadows  here  and  there  a  vine  ran 
red  along  the  grass ;  the  loath  choke-cherries  were 
ripening  in  the  fence  corners  ;  the  air  was  full  of 
the  pensive  jargoning  of  the  crickets  and  grass 
hoppers,  and  all  the  subtle  sentiment  of  the  fading 
summer.  Their  hearts  were  open  to  every  dreamy 
influence  of  the  time  ;  their  driver  understood 
hardly  any  English,  and  their,  talk  might  safely  he 
made  up  of  those  harmless  egotisms  which  young 
people  exchange,  —  those  strains  of  psychological 
autobiography  which  mark  advancing  intimacy  and 
in  which  they  appear  to  each  other  the  most  un 
common  persons  that  ever  lived,  and  their  expe 
riences  and  emotions  and  ideas  are  the  more 
surprisingly  unique  because  exactly  alike. 

It  seemed  a  very  short  league  to  Sillery  when 
they  left  the  St.  Louis  Road,  and  the  driver  turned 
his  horses'  heads  towards  the  river,  down  the 
winding  sylvan  way  that  descended  to  the  shore  ; 
and  they  had  not  so  much  desire,  after  all,  to 
explore  the  site  of  the  old  mission.  Nevertheless, 
they  got  out  and  visited  the  little  space  once 
occupied  by  the  Jesuit  chapel,  where  its  founda 
tions  may  yet  be  traced  in  the  grass,  and  they  read 
the  inscription  on  the  monument  lately  raised  by 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  199 

the  parish  to  the  memory  of  the  first  Jesuit  mis 
sionary  to  Canada,  who  died  at  Sillery.  Then 
there  seemed  nothing  more  to  do  but  admire  the 
mighty  rafts  and  piles  of  lumber ;  but  their  show 
of  interest  in  the  local  celebrity  had  stirred  the 
pride  of  Sillery,  and  a  little  French  boy  entered 
the  chapel-yard,  and  gave  Kitty  a  pamphlet  his 
tory  of  the  place,  for  \yhich  he  would  not  suffer 
himself  to  be  paid  ;  and  a  sweet-faced  young 
Englishwoman  came  out  of  the  house  across  the 
way,  and  hesitatingly  asked  if  they  would  not  like 
to  see  the  Jesuit  Residence.  She  led  them  indoors, 
and  showed  them  how  the  ancient  edifice  had  been 
encased  by  the  modern  house,  and  bade  them  note, 
from  the  deep  shelving  window-seats,  that  the 
stone  walls  were  three  feet,  thick.  The  rooms  were 
low-ceiled  and  quaintly  shaped,  but  they  borrowed 
a  certain  grandeur  from  this  massiveness  ;  and  it 
was  easy  to  figure  the  priests  in  black  and  the 
nuns  in  gray  in  those  dim  chambers,  which  now  a 
life  so  different  inhabited.  Behind  the  house  was 
a  plot  of  grass,  and  thence  the  wooded  hill  rose 
steep. 

"  But  come  up  stairs,"  said  the  ardent  little 
hostess  to  Kitty,  when  her  husband  came  in,  and 
had  civilly  welcomed  the  strangers,  "  and  I  '11 
show  you  my  own  raom,  that 's  as  old  as  any." 


200  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

They  left  the  two  men  below,  and  mounted  to  a 
large  room  carpeted  and  furnished  in  modern 
taste.  "  We  had  to  take  down  the  old  staircase," 
she  continued,  "  to  get  our  bedstead  up,"  —  a 
magnificent  structure  which  she  plainly  thought 
well  worth  the  sacrifice  ;  and  then  she  pointed  out 
divers  remnants  of  the  ancient  building.  "  It  's  a 
queer  place  to  live  in  ;  but  we  're  only  here  for 
the  summer  "  ;  and  she  went  on  to  explain,  with  a 
pretty  naivete,  how  her  husband's  business  brought 
him  to  Sillery  from  Quebec  in  that  season.  They 
were  descending  the  stairs,  Kitty  foremost,  as  she 
added,  "  This  is  my  first  housekeeping,  you  know, 
and  of  course  it  would  be  strange  anywhere ;  but 
you  can't  think  how  funny  it  is  here.  I  suppose," 
she  said,  shyly,  but  as. if  her  confidences  merited 
some  return,  while  Kitty  stepped  from  the  stair 
way  face  to  face  with  Mr.  Arbuton,  who  was  about 
to  follow  them,  with  the  lady's  husband,  —  "I 
suppose  this  is  your  wedding-journey." 

A  quick  alarm  flamed  through  the  young  girl, 
and  burned  out  of  her  glowing  cheeks.  This  pleas 
ant  masquerade  of  hers  must  look  to  others  like 
the  most  intentional  love-making  between  her  and 
Mr.  Arbuton, — no  dreams  either  of  them,  nor 
figures  in  a  play,  nor  characters  in  a  romance  ; 
nay,  on  one  spectator,  at  least,  it  had  shed  the 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  201 

soft  lustre  of  a  honeymoon.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise  1  Here  on  this  fatal  line  of  wedding- 
travel,  —  so  common  that  she  remembered  Mrs. 
March  half  apologized  for  making  it  her  first  tour 
after  marriage,  —  how  could  it  happen  but  that 
two  young  people  together  as  they  were  should  be 
taken  for  bride  and  bridegroom]  Moreover,  and 
worst  of  all,  he  must  have  heard  that  fatal  speech  ! 

He  was  pale,  if  she  was  flushed,  and  looked 
grave,  as  she  fancied ;  but  he  passed  on  up  the 
stairs,  and  she  sat  down  to  wait  for  his  return. 

"  I  used  to  notice  so  many  couples  from  the 
States  when  we  lived  in  the  city,"  continued  the 
hospitable  mistress  of  the  house,  "  but  I  don't 
think  they  often  came  out  to  Sillery.  In  fact, 
you  're  the  only  pair  that 's  come  this  summer ; 
and  so,  when  you  seemed  interested  about  the 
mission,  I  thought  you  would  n't  mind  if  I  spoke 
to  you,  and  asked  you  in  to  see  the  house.  Most 
of  the  Americans  stay  long  enough  to  visit  the 
citadel,  and  the  Plains  of  Abraham,  and  the  Falls 
at  Montmorenci,  and  then  they  go  away.  I  should 
think  they  'd  be  tired  always  doing  the  same 
things.  To  be  sure,  they  're  always  different  peo 
ple." 

It  was  unfair  to  let  her  entertainer  go  on  talking 
for  quantity  in  this  way  ;  and  Kitty  said  how  glad 
9 


202  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

she  was  to  see  the  old  Residence,  and  that  she 
should  always  be  grateful  to  her  for  asking  them 
in.  She  did  not  disabuse  her  of  her  error  ;  it  cost 
less  to  leave  it  alone  ;  and  when  Mr.  Arbuton  re 
appeared,  she  took  leave  of  those  kind  people  with 
a  sort  of  remote  enjoyment  of  the  wife's  mistaken- 
ness  concerning  herself.  Yet,  as  the  young  ma 
tron  and  her  husband  stood  beside  the  carriage 
repeating  their  adieux,  she  would  fain  have  pro 
longed  the  parting  forever,  so  much  she  dreaded 
to  be  left  alone  with  Mr.  Arbuton.  But,  left  alone 
with  him,  her  spirits  violently  rose  ;  and  as  they 
drove  along  under  the  shadow  of  the  cliff,  she  des 
canted  in  her  liveliest  strain  upon  the  various  inter 
ests  of  the  way  ;  she  dwelt  on  the  beauty  of  the 
wide,  still  river,  with  the  ships  at  anchor  in  it ; 
she  praised  the  lovely  sunset-light  on  the  other 
shore ;  she  commented  lightly  on  the  village, 
through  which  they  passed,  with  the  open  doors 
and  the  suppers  frying  on  the  great  stoves  set 
into  the  partition-walls  of  each  cleanly  home ;  she 
made  him  look  at  the  two  great  stairways  that 
climb  the  cliff  from  the  lumber-yards  to  the  Plains 
of  Abraham,  and  the  army  of  laborers,  each  with 
his  empty  dinner-pail  in  hand,  scaling  the  once 
difficult  heights  on  their  way  home  to  the  suburb 
of  St.  Roch ;  she  did  whatever  she  could  to  keep 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  203 

the  talk  to  herself  and  yet  away  from  herself. 
Part  of  the  way  the  village  was  French  and  neat 
and  pleasant,  then  it  grovelled  with  Irish  people, 
and  ceased  to  be  a  tolerable  theme  for  discourse  ; 
and  so  at  last  the  silence  against  which  she  had 
battled  fell  upon  them  and  deepened  like  a  spell 
that  she  could  not  break. 

It  would  have  been  better  for  Mr.  Arbuton's 
success  just  then  if  he  had  not  broken  it.  But 
failure  was  not  within  his  reckoning  ;  for  he  had  so 
long  regarded  this  young  girl  de  haut  en  bas,  to  say 
it  brutally,  that  he  could  not  imagine  she  should 
feel  any  doubt  in  accepting  him.  Moreover,  a 
magnanimous  sense  of  obligation  mingled  with 
his  confident  love,  for  she  must  have  known  that 
he  had  overheard  that  speech  at  the  Residence. 
Perhaps  he  let  this  feeling  color  his  manner,  how 
ever  faintly.  He  lacked  the  last  fine  instinct  ;  he 
could  not  forbear ;  and  he  spoke  while  all  her 
nerves  and  fluttering  pulses  cried  him  mercy. 


204  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

XL 

KITTY  ANSWERS. 

T  was  dimmest  twilight  when  Kitty  en 
tered  Mrs.  Ellison's  room  and  sank  down 
on  the  first  chair  in  silence. 

"  The  colonel  met  a  friend  at  the  St.  Louis,  and 
forgot  about  the  expedition,  Kitty,"  said  Fanny? 
"  and  he  only  came  in  half  an  hour  ago.  But  it 's 
just  as  well :  I  know  you  've  had  a  splendid  time. 
Where  's  Mr.  Arbuton  1 " 

Kitty  burst  into  tears. 

"  Why,  has  anything  happened  to  him  ? "  cried 
Mrs.  Ellison,  springing  towards  her. 

"  To  him  1  No  !  What  should  happen  to  Mm  ?  "  4 
Kitty  demanded  with  an  indignant  accent. 

"  Well,  then,  has  anything  happened  to  you  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  if  you  can  call  it  happening. 
But  I  suppose  you  '11  be  satisfied  now,  Eanny. 
He 's  offered  himself  to  me."  Kitty  uttered  the 
last  words  with  a  sort  of  violence,  as  if  since  the 
fact  must  be  stated,  she  wished  it  to  appear  in  the 
sharpest  relief. 

"  0  dear !  "  said  Mrs.  Ellison,  not  so  well  satis- 


A   Cliance  Acquaintance.  205 

fied  as  the  successful  match- maker  ought  to  be. 
So  long  as  it  was  a  marriage  in  the  abstract,  she 
had  never  ceased  to  desire  it ;  but  as  the  actual 
union  of  Kitty  and  this  Mr.  Arbuton,  of  whom, 
really,  they  knew  so  little,  and  of  whom,  if  sli3 
searched  her  heart,  she  had  as  little  liking  as 
knowledge,  it  was  another  affair.  Mrs.  Ellison- 
trembled  at  her  triumph,  and  began  to  think  that 
failure  would  have  been  easier  to  bear.  Were 
they  in  the  least  suited  to  each  other]  Would 
she  like  to  see  poor  Kitty  chained  for  life  to  that 
impassive  egotist,  whose  very  merits  were  repellent, 
and  whose  modesty  even  seemed  to  convict  and 
snub  you  *?  Mrs.  Ellison  was  not  able  to  put  the 
matter  to  herself  with  moderation,  either  way ; 
doubtless  she  did  Mr.  Arbuton  injustice  now. 
"Did  you  accept  him'?"  she  whispered,  feebly. 

"  Accept  him  1 "  repeated  Kitty.     "  No  T'_ 

"0  dear!"  again  sighed  Mrs.  Ellison,  feeling 
that  this  was  scarcely  better,  and  not  daring  to 
ask  further. 

"  I  'm  dreadfully  perplexed,  Fanny,"  said  Kitty, 
after  waiting  for  the  questions  which  did  not  come, 
"  and  I  wish  you  'd  help  me  think." 

"  I  will,  darling.  But  I  don't  know  that  I  '11  be 
of  much  use.  I  begin  to  think  I  'm  not  very  good 
at  thinking:." 


206  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

Kitty,  who  longed  chiefly  to  get  the  situation 
more  distinctly  before  herself,  gave  no  heed  to  this 
confession,  but  went  on  to  rehearse  the  whole 
affair.  The  twilight  lent  her  its  veil ;  and  in  the 
kindly  obscurity  she  gathered  courage  to  face  all 
the  facts,  and  even  to  find  what  was  droll  in  them. 

"  It  was  very  solemn,  of  course,  and  I  was  fright 
ened  ;  but  I  tried  to  keep  my  wits  about  me,  and 
not  to  say  yes,  simply  because  that  was  the  easi 
est  thing.  I  told  him  that  I  did  n't  know,  —  and 
I  don't ;  and  that  I  must  have  time  to  think,  — 
and  I  must.  He  was  very  ungenerous,  and  said  he 
had  hoped  I  had  already  had  time  to  think  ;  and  he 
could  n't  seem  to  understand,  or  else  I  could  n't  very 
well  explain,  how  it  had  been  with  me  all  along." 

"  He  might  certainly  say  you  had  encouraged 
him,"  Mrs.  Ellison  remarked,  thoughtfully. 

"Encouraged  him,  Fanny1?  How  can  you  ac 
cuse  me  of  such  indelicacy  1 " 

"  Encouraging  is  n't  indelicacy.  The  gentlemen 
have  to  be  encouraged,  or  of  course  they  'd  never 
have  any  courage.  They  're  so  timid,  naturally." 

"  I  don't  think  Mr.  Arbuton  is  very  timid.  He 
seemed  to  think  that  he  had  only  to  ask  as  a  mat 
ter  of  form,  and  I  had  no  business  to  say  any 
thing.  What  has  he  ever  done  for  me?  And 
has  n't  he  often  been  intensely  disagreeable  1  He 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  207 

ought  n't  to  have  spoken  just  after  overhearing 
what  he  did.  It  was  horrid  to  do  so.  He  was 
very  obtuse,  too,  not  to  see  that  girls  can't  always 
be  so  certain  of  themselves  as  men,  or,  if  they  are, 
don't  know  they  are  as  soon  as  they  're  asked." 

"Yes,"  interrupted  Mrs.  Ellison,  "that's  the 
way  with  girls.  I  do  believe  that  most  of  them 
—  when  they're  young  like  you,  Kitty — never 
think  of  marriage  as  the  end  of  their  flirtations. 
They  'd  just  like  the  attentions  and  the  romance 
to  go  on  forever,  and  never  turn  into  anything 
more  serious ;  and  they  're  not  to  blame  for  that, 
though  they  do  get  blamed  for  it." 

"  Certainly,"  assented  Kitty,  eagerly,  "  that  's 
it ;  that 's  just  what  I  was  saying  ;  that 's  the  very 
reason  why  girls  must  have  time  to  make  up  their 
minds.  You  had,  I  suppose." 

"  Yes,  two  minutes.  Poor  Dick  was  going  back 
to  his  regiment,  and  stood  with  his  watch  in  his 
hand.  I  said  no,  and  called  after  him  to  correct 
myself.  But,  Kitty,  if  the  romance  had  happened 
to  stop  without  his  saying  anything,  you  would  n't 
have  liked  that  either,  would  you  1 " 

"Xo,"  faltered  Kitty,  "I  suppose  not." 

"Well,  then,  don't  you  seel  That  's  a  great 
point  in  his  favor.  How  much  time  did  you  want, 
or  did  he  give  you  1 " 


208  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  I  said  I  should  answer  before  we  left  Quebec," 
answered  Kitty,  with  a  heavy  sigh. 

"  Don't  you  know  what  to  say  now  ? " 

"  I  can't  tell.  That  's  what  I  want  you  to  help 
me  think  out." 

Mrs.  Ellison  was  silent  for  a  moment  before  she 
said,  "Well,  then,  I  suppose  we  shall  have  to  go 
back  to  the  very  beginning." 

"Yes,"  assented  Kitty,  faintly. 

"  You  did  have  a  sort  of  fancy  for  him  the  first 
time  you  saw  him,  did  n't  you  1 "  asked  Mrs.  Elli 
son,  coaxingly,  while  forcing  herself  to  be  syste 
matic  and  coherent,  by  a  mental  strain  of  which 
no  idea  can  be  given.^ 

"Yes,"  said  Kitty,  yet  more  faintly,  adding, 
"but  I  can't  tell  just  what  sort  of  a  fancy  it  was. 
I  suppose  I  admired  him  for  being  handsome  and 
stylish,  and  for  having  such  exquisite  manners." 

"Go  on,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison.  "And  after  you 
got  acquainted  with  him  1 " 

"Why,  you  know  we  Ve  talked  that  over  once 
already,  Fanny." 

"  Yes,  but  we  ought  n't  to  skip  anything  now," 
replied  Mrs.  Ellison,  in  a  tone  of  judicial  accuracy 
which  made  Kitty  smile. 

But  she  quickly  became  serious  again,  and  said, 
"Afterwards  I  could  n't  tell  whether  to  like  him 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  209 

or  not,  or  whether  he  wanted  me  to.  I  think  he 
acted  very  strangely  for  a  person  in  —  love.  I 
used  to  feel  so  troubled  and  oppressed  when  I  was 
with  him.  He  seemed  always  to  be  making  him 
self  agreeable  under  protest." 

"  Perhaps  that  was  just  your  imagination,  Kitty." 

"Perhaps  it  was;  but  it  troubled  me  just  the 
same." 

"Well,  and  then]" 

"Well,  and  then  after  that  day  of  the  Mont 
gomery  expedition,  he  seemed  to  change  alto 
gether,  and  to  try  always  to  be  pleasant,  and  to 
do  everything  he  could  to  make  me  like  him.  I 
don't  know  how  to  account  for  it.  Ever  since 
then  he  's  been  extremely  careful  of  me,  and  be 
haved  —  of  course  without  knowing  it  —  as  if  I 
belonged  to  him  already.  Or  maybe  I  've  imagined 
that  too.  It 's  very  hard  to  tell  what  has  really 
happened  the  last  two  weeks." 

Kitty  was  silent,  and  Mrs.  Ellison  did  not 
speak  at  once.  Presently  she  asked,  "Was  his 
acting  as  if  you  belonged  to  him  disagreeable  ? " 

"  I  can't  tell.  I  think  it  was  rather  presuming. 
I  don't  know  why  he  did  it." 

"  Do  you  respect  him  1 "  demanded  Mrs.  Ellison. 

"  Why,  Fanny,  I  've  always  told  you  that  I  did 
respect  some  things  in  him." 

N 


210  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

Mrs.  Ellison  had  the  facts  before  her,  and  it 
rested  upon  her  to  sum  them  up,  and  do  something 
with  them.  She  rose  to  a  sitting  posture,  and  con 
fronted  her  task. 

"  Well,  Kitty,  I  '11  tell  you  :  I  don't  really  know 
what  to  think.  But  I  can  say  this  :  if  you  liked 
him  at  first,  and  then  did  n't  like  him,  and  after 
wards  he  made  himself  more  agreeable,  and  you 
did  n't  mind  his  behaving  as  if  you  belonged  to  him, 
and  you  respected  him,  but  after  all  did  n't  think 
him  fascinating  — 

"  He  is  fascinating  —  in  a  kind  of  way.  He  was, 
from  the  beginning.  In  a  story  his  cold,  snubbing, 
putting-down  ways  would  have  been  perfectly  fas 
cinating." 

"  Then  why  did  n't  you  take  him  1 " 

"  Because,"  answered  Kitty,  between  laughing 
and  crying,  "  it  is  n't  a  story,  and  I  don't  know 
whether  I  like  him." 

"  But  do  you  think  you  might  get  to  like  him  ?" 

"  I  don't  know.  His  asking  brings  back  all  the 
doubts  I  ever  had  of  him,  and  that  I  've  been  for 
getting  the  past  two  weeks.  I  can't  tell  whether  I 
like  him  or  not.  If  I  did,  should  n't  I  trust  him 
more  ? " 

"  Well,  whether  you  are  in  love  or  not,  I  '11  tell 
you  what  you  are,  Kitty,"  cried  Mrs.  Ellison,  pro- 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  211 

yoked  with  her  indecision,  and  yet  relieved  that 
the  worst,  whatever  it  was,  was  postponed  thereby 
for  a  day  or  two. 

"What?" 

"You're  —  " 

But  at  this  important  juncture  the  colonel  came 
lounging  in,  and  Kitty  glided  out  of  the  room. 

"Richard,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison,  seriously,  and  in  a 
tone  implying  that  it  was  the  colonel's  fault,  as 
usual,  "  you  know  what  has  happened,  I  suppose." 

"  No,  my  dear,  I  don't ;  but  no  matter :  I  will 
presently,  I  dare  say." 

"  0,  I  wish  for  once  you  would  n't  be  so  flippant. 
Mr.  Arbuton  has  offered  himself  to  Kitty." 

Colonel  Ellison  gave  a  quick,  sharp  whistle  of 
amazement,  but  trusted  himself  to  nothing  more 
articulate. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  wife,  responding  to  the  whistle, 
"  and  it  makes  me  perfectly  wretched." 

"  Why,  I  thought  you  liked  him." 

"  I  did  n't  like  him  ;  but  I  thought  it  would  be 
an  excellent  thing  for  Kitty." 

"  And  won't  it  1 " 

"  She  does  n't  know." 

"  Does  n't  know  ] " 

"  No." 

The  colonel  was  silent,  while  Mrs.  Ellison  stated 


212  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

the  case  in  full,  and  its  pending  uncertainty.  Then 
he  exclaimed  vehemently,  as  if  his  amazement 
had  been  growing  upon  him,  "  This  is  the  most 
astonishing  thing  in  the  world !  Who  would  ever 
have  dreamt  of  that  yonng  iceberg  being  in  love  V 

"  Have  n't  I  told  you  all  along  he  was  1 " 

"  0  yes,  certainly ;  but  that  might  be  taken 
either  way,  you  know.  You  would  discover  the 
tender  passion  in  the  eye  of  a  potato." 

"  Colonel  Ellison,"  said  Fanny  with  sternness, 
"  why  do  you  suppose  he 's  been  hanging  about  us 
for  the  last  four  weeks'?  Why  should  he  have 
stayed  in  Quebec  1  Do  you  think  he  pitied  me,  or 
found  you  so  very  agreeable  1 " 

"  Well,  I  thought  he  found  us  just  tolerable,  and 
was  interested  in  the  place." 

Mrs.  Ellison  made  no  direct  reply  to  this  pitiable 
speech,  but  looked  a  scorn  which,  happily  for  the 
colonel,  the  darkness  hid.  Presently  she  said  that 
bats  did  not  express  the  blindness  of  men,  for  any 
bat  could  have  seen  what  was  going  on. 

"  Why,"  remarked  the  colonel,  "  I  did  have  a 
momentary  suspicion  that  day  of  the  Montgomery 
business ;  they  both  looked  very  confused,  when  I 
saw  them  at  the  end  of  that  street,  and  neither  of 
them  had  anything  to  say  j  but  that  was  account 
ed  for  by  what  you  told  nie  afterwards  about  his 


A   C.'iance  Acquaintance.  213 

adventure.  At  the  time  I  did  n't  pay  much  at 
tention  to  the  matter.  The  idea  of  his  being  in 
love  seemed  too  ridiculous." 

"  Was  it  ridiculous  for  you  to  be  in  love  with 
me?" 

"  No ;  and  yet  I  can't  praise  my  condition  for  its 
wisdom,  Fanny." 

"  Yes !  that 's  like  men.  As  soon  as  one  of 
them  is  safely  married,  he  thinks  all  the  love- 
making  in  the  world  has  been  done  forever,  and 
he  can't  conceive  of  two  young  people  taking  a 
fancy  to  each  other." 

"  That 's  something  so,  Fanny.  But  granting 
—  for  the  sake  of  argument  merely  —  that  Boston 
has  been  asking  Kitty  to  marry  him,  and  she 
does  n't  know  whether  she  wants  him,  what  are  we 
to  do  about  it  1  I  don't  like  him  well  enough  to 
plead  his  cause  ;  do  you  ]  When  does  Kitty  think 
she  '11  be  able  to  make  up  her  mind  ? " 

"  She  's  to  let  him  know  before  we  leave." 

The  colonel  laughed.  "  And  so  he  's  to  hang 
about  here  on  uncertainties  for  two  whole  days  ! 
That  is  rather  rough  on  him.  Fanny,  what  made 
you  so  eager  for  this  business  1 " 

"  Eager  1     I  was  n't  eager." 

"  Well,  then,  —  reluctantly  acquiescent  ] " 

"  Why,  she  's  so  literary  and  that." 


214  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"And  wbatl" 

"  How  insulting  !  —  Intellectual,  and  so  on  ;  and 
I  thought  she  would  be  just  fit  to  live  in  a  place 
where  everybody  is  literary  and  intellectual.  That 
is,  I  thought  that,  if  I  thought  anything." 

"Well,"  said  the  colonel,  "you  may  have  been 
right  on  the  whole,  but  I  doirt  think  Kitty  is 
showing  any  particular  force  of  mind,  just  now, 
that  would  fit  her  to  live  in  Boston.  My  opinion 
is,  that  it 's  ridiculous  for  her  to  keep  him  in  sus 
pense.  She  might  as  well  answer  him  first  as  last. 
She  's  putting  herself  under  a  kind  of  obligation 
by  her  delay.  I  '11  talk  to  her  — 

"  If  you  do,  you  '11  kill  her.  You  don't  know 
how  she  's  wrought  up  about  it." 

"  0  well,  I  '11  be  careful  of  her  sensibilities.  It 's 
my  duty  to  speak  with  her.  I  'm  here  in  the 
place  of  a  parent.  Besides,  don't  I  know  Kitty  1 
I  've  almost  brought  her  up." 

"  Maybe  you  're  right.  You  're  all  so  queer  that 
perhaps  you  're  right.  Only,  do  be  careful,  Rich 
ard.  You  must  approach  the  matter  very  delicate 
ly,  —  indirectly,  you  know.  Girls  are  different, 
remember,  from  young  men,  and  you  must  n't 
be  blunt.  Do  manoeuvre  a  little,  for  once  in  your 
life." 

"  All  right,  Fanny  ;  you  need  n't  be  afraid  of 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  215 

my  doing  anything  awkward  or  sudden.  I  '11  go 
to  her  room  pretty  soon,  after  she  is  quieted  down, 
and  have  a  good,  calm  old  fatherly  conversation 
with  her." 

The  colonel  was  spared  this  errand ;  for  Kitty 
had  left  some  of  her  things  on  Fanny's  table,  and 
now  came  back  for  them  with  a  lamp  in  her  hand. 
Her  averted  face  showed  the  marks  of  weeping ; 
the  corners  of  her  firm-set  lips  were  downward 
bent,  as  if  some  resolution  which  she  had  taken 
were  very  painful.  This  the  anxious  Fanny  saw  ; 
and  she  made  a  gesture  to  the  colonel  which  any 
woman  would  have  understood  to  enjoin  silence, 
or,  at  least,  the  utmost  caution  and  tenderness  of 
speech.  The  colonel  summoned  his  finesse  and 
said,  cheerily,  "  Well,  Kitty,  what 's  Boston  been 
saying  to  you  1 " 

Mrs.  Ellison  fell  back  upon  her  sofa  as  if  shot, 
and  placed  her  hand  over  her  face. 

Kitty  seemed  not  to  hear  her  cousin.  Having 
gathered  up  her  things,  she  bent  an  unmoved 
face  and  an  unseeing  gaze  full  upon  him,  and 
glided  from  the  room  without  a  word. 

"  Well,  upon  my  soul,"  cried  the  colonel,  "  this 
is  a  pleasant,  nightmarish,,  sleep-walking,  Lady- 
Macbethish  little  transaction.  Confound  it,  Fan 
ny  !  this  comes  of  your  wanting  rne  to  manoouvre. 


21G  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

If  you  'd  let  mo  come  straight  at  the  subject,  — 
like  a  man  — 

"  Please,  Richard,  don't  say  anything  more  now," 
pleaded  Mrs.  Ellison  in  a  broken  voice.  "  You  can't 
help  it,  I  know ;  and  I  must  do  the  best  I  can, 
under  the  circumstances.  Do  go  away  for  a  little 
while,  darling  !  0  dear  !  " 

As  for  Kitty,  when  she  had  got  out  of  the  room 
in  that  phantasmal  fashion,  she  dimly  recalled, 
through  the  mists  of  her  own  trouble,  the  colonel's 
dismay  at  her  so  glooming  upon  him,  and  began 
to  think  that  she  had  used  poor  Dick  more  tragi 
cally  than  she  need,  and  so  began  to  laugh 
softly  to  herself;  but  while  she  stood  there  at  the 
entry  window  a  moment,  laughing  in  the  moon 
light,  that  made  her  lamp-flame  thin,  and  painted 
her  face  with  its  pale  lustre,  Mr.  Arbuton  came 
down  the  attic  stairway.  He  was  not  a  man  of 
quick  fancies  ;  but  to  one  of  even  slower  imagi 
nation  and  of  calmer  mood,  she  might  very  well 
have  seemed  unreal,  the  creature  of  a  dream,  fan 
tastic,  intangible,  insensible,  arch,  not  wholly  with 
out  some  touch  of  the  malign.  In  his  heart  he 
groaned  over  her  beauty  as  if  she  were  lost  to  him 
forever  in  this  elfish  transfiguration. 

"  Miss  Ellison ! "  he  scarcely  more  than  whis 
pered. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  217 

"You  ought  not  to  speak  to  me  now,"  she 
answered,  gravely. 

"  I  know  it ;  but  I  could  not  help  it.  For 
heaven's  sake,  do  not  let  it  tell  against  me.  I 
wished  to  ask  if  I  should  not  see  you  to-morrow  ; 
to  beg  that  all  might  go  on  as  had  been  planned, 
and  as  if  nothing  had  been  said  to-day." 

"  It  '11  be  very  strange,"  said  Kitty.  "  My 
cousins  know  everything  now.  How  can  we  meet 
before  them  ] " 

"  I  'in  not  going  away  without  an  answer,  and 
we  can't  remain  here  without  meeting.     It  will  be 
less  strange  if  we  let  everything  take  its  course." 
"  Well." 
"  Thanks." 

He  looked  strangely  humbled,  but  even  more 
bewildered  than  humbled. 

She  listened  while  he  descended  the  steps,  un 
bolted  the  street  door,  and  closed  it  behind  him. 
Then  she  passed  out  of  the  moonlight  into  her 
own  room,  whose  close-curtained  space  the  lamp 
filled  with  its  ruddy  glow,  and  revealed  her  again, 
no  malicious  sprite,  but  a  very  puzzled,  conscien 
tious,  anxious  young  girl. 

Of  one  thing,  at  least,  shejvas_clear.     It  had  all 
come    about  through  misunderstanding,   through 
his  taking  her  to  be  something  that  she  was  not ; 
10 


218  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

for  she  was  certain  that  Mr.  Arbuton  was  of  too 
worldly  a  spirit  to  choose,  if  he  had  known,  a  girl 
of  such  origin  and  lot  as  she  was  only  too  proud 
to  own.  The  deception  must  have  begun  with 
dress ;  and  she  determined  that  her  first  stroke 
for  truth  and  sincerity  should  be  most  sublimely 
made  in  the  return  of  Fanny's  things,  and  a 
rigid  fidelity  to  her  own  dresses.  "  Besides.'' 
she  could  not  help  reflecting,  "my  travelling- 
suit  will  be  just  the  thing  for  a  picnic."  And 
here,  if  the  cynical  reader  of  another  sex  is  dis 
posed  to  sneer  at  the  method  of  her  self-devotion, 
I  am  sure  that  women,  at  least,  will  allow  it  was 
most  natural  and  highly  proper  that  in  this  great 
moment  she  should  first  think  of  dress,  upon  which 
so  great  consequences  hang  in  matters  of  the  heart. 
Who  —  to  be  honest  for  once,  0  vaiu  and  conceited 
men  !  —  can  deny  that  the  cut,  the  color,  the  tex 
ture,  the  stylish  set  of  dresses,  has  not  had  every 
thing  to  do  with  the  rapture  of  love's  young  dream  ? 
Are  not  certain  bits  of  lace  and  knots  of  ribbon  as 
much  a  part  of  it  as  any  smile  or  sidelong  glance 
of  them  all  1  And  hath  not  the  long  experience 
of  the  fair  taught  them  that  artful  dress  is  half  the 
virtue  of  their  spells  1  Full  well  they  know  it ; 
and  when  Kitty  resolved  to  profit  no  longer  by 
Fanny's  wardrobe,  she  had  won  the  hardest  part 


A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

of  the  battle  in  behalf  of  perfect  truth  towards  Mr. 
Arbuton.  She  did  not,  indeed,  stop  with  this,  but 
lay  awake,  devising  schemes  by  which  she  should 
disabuse  hrni  6f  his  errors  about  her,  and  persuade 
him  that  she  was  no  wife  for  him. 


220  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

XII. 

THE  PICNIC   AT  CHATEAU-BIGOT. 

ELL,  said  Mrs.  Ellison,  who  had  slipped 
into  Kitty's  room,  in  the  morning,  to  do 
her  back  hair  with  some  advantages  of 
light  which  her  own  chamber  lacked-,  "  it  '11  be  no 
crazier  than  the  rest  of  the  performance ;  and  if 
you  and  he  can  stand  it,  I  'm  sure  that  ive  've  no 
reason  to  complain." 

"  Why,  I  don't  see  how  it 's  to  be  helped,  Fanny. 
He  's  asked  it  ;  and  I  'm  rather  glad  he  has,  for 
I  should  have  hated  to  have  the  conventional 
headache  that  keeps  young  ladies  from  being 
seen ;  and  at  any  rate  I  don't  understand  how  the 
day  could  be  passed  more  sensibly  than  just  as  we 
originally  planned  to  spend  it.  I  can  make  up  my 
mind  a  great  deal  better  with  him  than  away  from 
him.  But  I  think  there  never  was  a  more  ridicu 
lous  situation  :  now  that  the  high  tragedy  has 
faded  out  of  it,  and  the  serious  part  is  coming,  it 
makes  me  laugh.  Poor  Mr.  Arbuton  will  feel  all 
day  that  he  is  under  my  mercilessly  critical  eye, 
and  that  he  must  n't  do  this  and  he  must  n't  say 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  221 

that,  for  fear  of  me  ;  and  he  can't  run  away,  for 
he  's  promised  to  wait  patiently  for  my  decision. 
It 's  a  most  inglorious  position  for  him,  but  I 
don't  think  of  anything  to  do  about  it.  I  could 
say  no  at  once,  but  he  'd  rather  not." 

"  What  have  you  got  that  dress  on  for  ? "  asked 
Mrs.  Ellison,  abruptly. 

"  Because  I  'm  not  going  to  wear  your  things 
any  more,  Fanny.  It's  a  case  of  conscience.  I 
feel  like  a  guilty  creature,  being  courted  in  an 
other's  clothes  ;  and  I  don't  know  but  it 's  for  a 
kind  of  punishment  of  my  deceit  that  I  can't  real 
ize  this  affair  as  I  ought,  or  my  part  in  it.  I  keep 
feeling,  the  whole  time,  as  if  it  were  somebody 
else,  and  I  have  an  absurd  kind  of  other  person's 
interest  in  it." 

Mrs.  Ellison  essayed  some  reply,  but  was  met 
by  Kitty's  steadfast  resolution,  and  in  the  end  did 
not  prevail  in  so  much  as  a  ribbon  for  her  hair. 

It  was  not  till  well  into  the  forenoon  that  the 
preparations  for  the  picnic  were  complete  and  the 
four  set  off  together  in  one  carriage.  In  the  strong 
need  that  was  on  each  of  them  to  make  the  best 
'of  the  affair,  the  colonel's  unconsciousness  might 
have  been  a  little  overdone,  but  Mrs.  Ellison's 
demeanor  was  sublimely  successful.  The  situation 
gave  full  play  to  her  peculiar  genius,  and  you  could 


222  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

not  have  said  that  any  act  of  hers  failed  to  con 
tribute  to  the  perfection  of  her  design,  that  any 
tone  or  speech  was  too  highly  colored.  Mr.  Ar- 
buton,  of  whom  she  took^ppssession,  and  who 
knew  that  she  knew  all,  felt  that  he  had  never 
done  justice  to  her,  and  seconded  her  efforts  with 
something  like  cordial  admiration ;  while  Kitty, 
with  certain  grateful  looks  and  aversions  of  the 
face,  paid  an  ardent  homage  to  her  strokes  of  tact, 
and  after  a  few  miserable  moments,  in  which  her 
nightlong  trouble  gnawed  at  her  heart,  began,  in 
spite  of  herself,  to  enjoy  the  humor  of  the  situa 
tion. 

It  is  a  lovely  road  out  to  Chateau-Bigot.  First 
you  drive  through  the  ancient  suburbs  of  the 
Lower  Town,  and  then  you  mount  the  smooth, 
hard  highway,  between  pretty  country-houses, 
toward  the  village  of  Charlesbourg,  while  Que 
bec  show^s,  to  your  casual  backward-glance,  like  a 
wondrous  painted  scene,  with  the  spires  and  lofty 
roofs  of  the  Upper  Town,  and  the  long,  irregular 
wall  wandering  on  the  verge  of  the  cliff ;  then  the 
thronging  gables  and  chimneys  of  St.  Roch,  and 
again  many  spires  and  convent  walls ;  lastly  the 
shipping  in  the  St.  Charles,  which,  in  one  direc 
tion,  runs,  a  narrowing  gleam,  up  into  its  valley, 
and  in  the  other  widens  into  the  broad  light  of 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  223 

the  St.  Lawrence.  Quiet,  elmy  spaces  of  meadow 
land  stretch  between  the  suburban  mansions  and 
the  village  of  Charlesbourg,  where  the  driver^eas- 
sured  himself  as  to  his  route  from  the  group  of 
idlers  on  the  platform  before  the  church.  Then 
he  struck  off  on  a  country  road,  and  presently 
turned  from  this  again  into  a  lane  that  grew 
rougher  and  rougher,  till  at  last  it  lapsed  to  a 
mere  cart-track  among  the  woods,  where  the  rich, 
strong  odors  of  the  pine,  and  of  the  wild  herbs 
bruised  under  the  wheels,  filled  the  air.  A  peas 
ant  and  his  black-eyed,  open-mouthed  boy  were 
cutting  withes  to  bind  hay  at  the  side  of  the 
track,  and  the  latter  consented  to  show  the 
strangers  to  the  chateau  from  a  point  beyond 
which  they  could  not  go  with  the  carriage.  There 
the  small  habitant  and  the  driver  took  up  the 
picnic-baskets,  and  led  the  way  through  pathless 
growths  of  underbrush  to  a  stream,  so  swift  that 
it  is  said  never  to  freeze,  so  deeply  sprung  that 
the  summer  never  drinks  it  dry.  A  screen  of 
water-growths  bordered  it ;  and  when  this  was 
passed,  a  wide  open  space  revealed  itself,  with  the 
ruin  of  the  chateau  in  the  midst. 

The  pathos  of  long  neglect  lay  upon  the  scene  ; 
for  here  were  evidences  of  gardens  and  bowery 
aisles  in  other  times,  and  now,  for  many  a  year, 


224  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

desolation  and  the  slow  return  of  the  wilderness. 
The  mountain  rising  behind  the  chateau  grounds 
showed  the  dying  flush  of  the  deciduous  leaves 
among  the  dark  green  of  the  pines  that  clothed  it 
to  the  crest  ;  a  cry  of  innumerable  crickets  filled 
the  ear  of  the  dreaming  noon. 

The  ruin  itself  is  not  of  impressive  size,  and  it 
is  a  chateau  by  grace  of  the  popular  fancy  rather 
than  through  any  right  of  its  own  ;  for  it  was,  in 
truth,  never  more  than  the  hunting-lodge  of  the 
king's  Intendant,  Bigot,  a  man  whose  sins  claim 
for  him  a  lordly  consideration  in  the  history  of  Que 
bec.  He  was  the  last  Intendant  before  the  British 
conquest,  and  in  that  time  of  general  distress  ho 
grew  rich  by  oppression  of  the  citizens,  and  by  pecu 
lation  from  the  soldiers.  He  built  this  pleasure- 
house  here  in  the  woods,  and  hither  he  rode  out 
from  Quebec  to  enjoy  himself  in  the  chase  and  the 
carouses  that  succeed  the  chase.  Here,  too,  it  is 
said,  dwelt  in  secret  the  Huron  girl  who  loved 
him,  and  who  survives  in  the  memory  of  the  peas 
ants  as  the  murdered  sauvagesse ;  and,  indeed, 
there  is  as  much  proof  that  she  was  murdered 
as  that  she  ever  lived.  When  the  wicked  Bigot 
was  arrested  and  sent  to  France,  where  he  was 
tried  with  great  result  of  documentary  record,  his 
chateau  fell  into  other  hands  ;  at  last  a  party  of 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  225 

Arnold's  men  wintered  there  in  1775,  and  it  is  to 
our  own  countrymen  that  we  owe  the  conflagration 
and  the  ruin  of  Chateau-Bigot.  It  stands,  as  I  said, 
in  the  middle  of  that  open  place,  with  the  two 
gable  walls  and  the  stone  partition-wall  still  almost 
entire,  and  that  day  showing  very  effectively 
against  the  tender  northern  sky.  On  the  most 
weatherward  gable  the  iron  in  the  stone  had  shed 
a  dark  red  stain  under  the  lash  of  many  winter 
storms,  and  some  tough  lichens  had  incrusted 
patches  of  the  surface ;  but,  for  the  rest,  the  walls 
rose  in  the  univied  nakedness  of  all  ruins  in  our 
climate,  which  has  no  clinging  evergreens  where 
with  to  pity  and  soften  the  forlornness  of  decay. 
Out  of  the  rubbish  at  the  foot  of  the  walls  there 
sprang  a  wilding  growth  of  syringas  and  lilacs; 
and  the  interior  was  choked  with  flourishing  weeds, 
and  with  the  briers  of  the  raspberry,  on  which  a  few 
berries  hung.  The  heavy  beams,  left  where  they  fell 
a  hundred  years  ago,  proclaimed  the  honest  solidity 
with  which  the  chateau  had  been  built,  and  there 
was  proof  in  the  cut  stone  of  the  hearths  and  chim 
ney-places  that  it  had  once  had  at  least  the  ambi 
tion  of  luxury. 

While  its  visitors  stood  amidst  the  ruin,  a  harm 
less  garden-snake  slipped  out  of  one  crevice  into 
another;   from   her  nest   in  some   hidden  corner 
10 »  o 


22  G  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

overhead  a  silent  bird  flew  away.  For  the  mo 
ment, —  so  slight  is  the  capacity  of  any  mood,  so 
deeply  is  the  heart  responsive  to  a  little  impulse, 
—  the  palace  of  the  Causars  could  not  have  im 
parted  a  keener  sense  of  loss  and  desolation.  They 
eagerly  sought  such  particulars  of  the  ruin  as 
agreed  with  the  descriptions  they  had  read  of  it, 
and  were  as  well  contented  with  a  bit  of  cellar-way 
outside  as  if  they  had  really  found  the  secret  pas 
sage  to  the  subterranean  chamber  of  the  chateau,  or 
the  hoard  of  silver  which  the  little  habitant  said 
was  buried  under  it.  Then  they  dispersed  about 
the  grounds  to  trace  out  the  borders  of  the  garden, 
and  Mr.  Arbuton  won  the  common  praise  by  discov 
ering  the  foundations  of  the  stable  of  the  chateau. 
Then  there  was  no  more  to  do  but  to  prepare  for 
the  picnic.  They  chose  a  grassy  plot  in  the  shadow 
of  a  half-dismantled  bark-lodge,  —  a  relic  of  the* 
Indians,  who  resort  to  the  place  every  summer. 
In  the  ashes  of  that  sylvan  hearth  they  kindled 
their  fire,  Mr.  Arbuton  gathering  the  sticks,  and  the 
colonel  showing  a  peculiar  genius  in  adapting  the 
savage  flames  to  the  limitations  of  the  civilized 
coffee-pot  borrowed  of  Mrs.  Gray.  Mrs.  Ellison 
laid  the  cloth,  much  meditating  the  arrangement 
of  the  viands,  and  reversing  again  and  again  the 
relative  positions  of  tl^e  sliced  tongue  and  the 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  227 

sardines  that  flanked  the  cold  roast  chicken,  and 
doubting  dreadfully  whether  to  put  down  the  cake 
and  Hu.*  fanned  pouches  at  once,  or  reserve  tlu-iu 
for  a  second  course  ;  the  stuffed  olives  drove  her 
to  despair,  being  in  a  bottle,  and  refusing  to  be 
balanced  by  anything  less  monumental  in  shape. 
Some  wild  asters  and  red  leaves  and  green  and 
yellowing  sprays  of  fern  which  Kitty  arranged  in 
a  tumbler  were  hailed  with  rapture,  but  presently 
flung  far  away  with  fierce  disdain  because  they  had 
ants  on  them.  Kitty  witnessed  this  outburst  with 
her  usual  complacency,  and  then  went  on  making 
the  coffee.  With  such  blissful  pain  as  none  but 
lovers  know,  Mr.  Arbuton  saw  her  break  the  egg 
upon  the  edge  of  the  coffee-pot,  and  let  it  drop 
therein,  and  then,  with  a  charming  frenzy,  stir  it 
round  and  round.  It  was  a  picture  of  domestic 
^suggestion,  a  subtle  insinuation  of  home,  the 
unconscious  appeal  of  inherent  housewifery  to 
inherent  husbandhood.  At  the  crash  of  the  egg 
shell  he  trembled ;  the  swift  agitation  of  the  coffee 
and  the  egg  within  the  pot  made  him  dizzy. 

"Sha'  n't  1  stir  that  for  you,  Miss  Ellison?"  he 
said,  awkwardly. 

"  0  dear,  no  !  "  she  answered  in  surprise  at  a 
man's  presuming  to  stir  coffee  ;  "  but  you  may  go 
get  me  some  water  at  the  creek,  if  you  please." 


228  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

She  gave  him  a  pitcher,  and  he  went  off  to  the 
brook,  which  was  but  a  minute's  distance  away. 
This  minute,  however,  left  her  alone,  for  the  first 
time  that  day,  with  both  Dick  and  Fanny,  and  a 
silence  fell  upon  all  three  at  once.  They  could  not 
help  looking  at  one  another ;  and  then  the  colonel, 
to  show  that  he  was  not  thinking  of  anything, 
began  to  whistle,  and  Mrs.  Ellison  rebuked  him  for 
whistling. 

"  Why  not  1 "  he  asked.  "  It  is  n't  a  funeral,  is 
itl" 

"  Of  course  it  is  n't,"  said  Mrs.  Ellison  ;  and 
Kitty,  who  had  been  blushing  to  the  verge  of 
tears,  laughed  instead,  and  then  was  consumed 
with  vexation  when  Mr.  Arbuton  came  up,  feeling 
that  he  must  suspect  himself  the  motive  of  her  ill- 
timed  mirth.  "  The  champagne  ought  to  be  cooled, 
I  suppose,"  observed  Mrs.  Ellison,  when  the  coffee 
had  been  finally  stirred  and  set  to  boil  on  the 
coals. 

"  I  'in  best  acquainted  with  the  brook,"  said  Mr. 
Arbuton,  "and  I  know  just  the  eddy  in  it  where 
the  champagne  will  cool  soonest." 

"  Then  you  shall  take  it  there,"  answered  the 
governess  of  the  feast  ;  and  Mr.  Arbuton  duteously 
set  off  with  the  bottle  in  his  hand. 

The    pitcher  of  water   which   he    had    already 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  229 

brought  stood  in  the  grass  ;  by  a  sudden  move 
ment  of  the  skirt,  Kitty  knocked  it  over.  The 
colonel  made  a  start  forward  ;  Mrs.  Ellison  arrest 
ed  him  with  a  touch,  while  she  bent  a  look  of 
ineffable  admiration  upon  Kitty. 

"  Now,  I  '11  teach  myself."  said  Kitty,  "  that  I 
can't  be  so  clumsy  with  impunity.  I  '11  go  and 
fill  that  pitcher  again  myself."  She  hurried  after 
Mr.  Arbnton  ;  they  scarcely  spoke  going  or  com 
ing  ;  but  the  constraint  that  Kitty  felt  was  noth 
ing  to  that  she  had  dreaded  in  seeking  to  escape 
from  the  tacit  raillery  of  the  colonel  and  the 
championship  of  Fanny.  Yet  she  trembled  to 
realize  that  already  Iu.-r  li!:'  hud  become  so  tar  en 
tangled  with  this  stranger's,  that  she  found  refuge 
with  him  from  her  own  kindred.  They  could  do 
nothing  to  help  her  in  this ;  the  trouble  was  solely 
hers  and  his,  and  they  two  must  get  out  of  it  one 
way  or  other  themselves  ;  the  case  scarcely  admit 
ted  even  of  sympathy,  and  if  it  had  not  been  hers, 
it  would  have  been  one  to  amuse  her  rather  than 
appeal  to  her  compassion.  Even  as  it  was,  she 
sometimes  caught  herself  smiling  at  the  predica 
ment  of  a  young  girl  who  had  passed  a  month  in 
every  appearance  of  love-making,  and  who,  being 
asked  her  heart,  was  holding  her  lover  in  suspense 
whilst  she  searched  it,  and  meantime  was  picnicking 


230  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

with  him  upon  the  terms  of  casual  flirtation.  Of 
all  the  heroines  in  her  books,  she  knew  none  in  such 
a  strait  as  this. 

But  her  perplexities  did  not  impair  the  appetite 
which  she  brought  to  the  sylvan  feast.  In  her 
whole  simple  life  she  had  never  tasted  champagne 
before,  and  she  said  innocently,  as  she  put  the 
frisking  fluid  from  her  lips  after  the  first  taste, 
"  Why,  I  thought  you  had  to  learn  to  like  cham 
pagne." 

"  No,"  remarked  the  colonel,  "  it 's  like  reading 
and  writing  :  it  comes  by  nature.  I  suppose  that 
even  one  of  the  lower  animals  would  like  cham 
pagne.  The  refined  instinct  of  young  ladies  makes 
them  recognize  its  merits  instantly.  Some  of  the 
Confederate  cellars,"  added  the  colonel,  thought 
fully,  "  had  very  good  champagne  in  them.  Green 
seal  was  the  favorite  of  our  erring  brethren.  It 
was  n't  one  of  their  errors.  I  prefer  it  myself  to 
our  own  native  cider,  whether  made  of  apples  or 
grapes.  Yes,  it 's  better  even  than  the  water  from 
the  old  chain-pump  in  the  back  yard  at  Eriecreek, 
though  it  has  n't  so  fine  a  flavor  of  lubricating  oil 
in  it." 

The  faint  chill  that  touched  Mr.  Arbuton  at  the 
mention  of  Eriecreek  and  its  petrolic  associations 
was  transient.  He  was  very  light  of  heart,  since 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  231 

the  advance  that  Kitty  seemed  to  have  made  him  ; 
and  in  his  temporary  abandon  he  talked  well,  and 
promoted  the  pleasure  of  the  time  without  critical 
reserves.  When  the  colonel,  with  the  reluctance 
of  our  soldiers  to  speak  of  their  warlike  experiences 
before  civilians,  had  suffered  himself  to  tell  a  story 
that  his  wife  begged  of  him  about  his  last  battle, 
Mr.  Arbuton  listened  with  a  deference  that  flat-, 
tered  poor  Mrs.  Ellison,  and  made  her  marvel  at 
Kitty's  doubt  concerning  him;  and  then  lie  spoke 
entertainingly  of  some  travel  experiences  of  his  own, 
which  he  politely  excused  as  quite  unworthy  to 
come  after  the  colonel's  story.  He  excused  them 
a  little  too  much,  and  just  gave  the  modest  soldier 
a  faint,  uneasy  fear  of  having  boasted.  But  no  one 
else  felt  this  result  of  his  delicacy,  and  the  feast 
was  merry  enough.  When  it  was  ended,  Mrs. 
Ellison,  being  still  a  little  infirm  of  foot,  remained 
in  the  shadow  of  the  bark-lodge,  and  the  colonel 
lit  his  cigar,  and  loyally  stretched  himself  upon 
the  grass  before  her. 

There  was  nothing  else  for  Kitty  and  Mr.  Arbu 
ton  but  to  stroll  off  together,  and  she  preferred  to 
do  this. 

They  sauntered  up  to  the  chateau  in  silence,  and 
peered  somewhat  languidly  about  the  ruin.  On  a 
bit  of  smooth  surface  in  a  sheltered  place  many 


232  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

names  of  former  visitors  were  written,  and  Mr. 
Arbuton  said  he  supposed  they  might  as  well  add 
those  of  their  own  party. 

"  0  yes,"  answered  Kitty,  with  a  half-sigh,  seat 
ing  herself  upon  a  fallen  stone,  and  letting  her 
hands  fall  into  each  other  in  her  lap  as  her  wont 
was,  "  you  write  them."  A  curious  pensiveness 
passed  from  one  to  the  other  and  possessed  them 
both. 

Mr.  Arbuton  began  to  write.  Suddenly,  "  Miss 
Ellison,"  said  he,  with  a  smile,  "  I  've  blundered 
in  your  name ;  I  neglected  to  put  the  Miss  before 
it ;  and  now  there  is  n't  room  on  the  plastering." 

"  0,  never  mind,"  replied  Kitty,  "  I  dare  say  it 
won't  be  missed  !  " 

Mr.  Arbuton  neither  perceived  nor  heeded  the 
pun.  He  was  looking  in  a  sort  of  rapture  at  the 
name  which  his  own  hand  had  written  now  for 
the  first  time,  and  he  felt  an  indecorous  desire  to 
kiss  it. 

"  If  I  could  speak  it  as  I  've  written  it  — 

"  I  don't  see  what  harm  there  would  be  in 
that,"  said  the  owner  of  the  name,  "or  what  ob 
ject,"  she  added  more  discreetly. 

— "  I  should  feel  that  I  had  made  a  great 
gain." 

"  I  never  told  you,"  answered  Kitty,  evasively, 


A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"how  much  I  admire  your  first  name,  Mr.  Ar- 
butou." 

"  How  did  you  know  it  1 " 

"  It  was  on  the  card  you  gave  my  cousin,"  said 
Kitty,  frankly,  butvthinking  he  now  must  know 
she  had  been  keeping  his  card. 

"  It 's  an  old  family  name,  —  a  sort  of  heirloom 
from  the  first  of  us  who  came  to  the  country  ;  and 
in  every  generation  since,  some  Arbuton  has  had 
to  wear  it." 

"  It  's  superb  !  "  cried  Kitty.  "  Miles  !  '  Miles 
Standish,  the  Puritan  captain,'  'Miles  Standish, 
the  Captain  of  Plymouth.'  I  should  be  very  proud 
of  such  a  name." 

"  You  have  only  to  take  it,"  he  said,  gravely. 
"  0,  I  did  n't  mean  that,"  she  said  with  a  blush, 
and  then  added,  "  Yours  is  a  very  old  family,  then, 
is  n't  it  ?  " 

"  Yes,  it 's  pretty  well,"  answered  Mr.  Arbuton, 
"  but  it 's  not  such  a  rare  thing  in  the  East,  you 
know." 

"  I  suppose  not.  The  Ellisons  are  not  an  old 
family.  If  we  went  back  of  my  uncle,  we  should 
only  come  to  backwoodsmen  and  Indian  fighters. 
Perhaps  that 's  the  reason  we  don't  care  much  for 
old  families.  You  think  a  great  deal  of  them  in 
Boston,  don  t  you  ]  " 


234  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Wo  do,  and  we  don't.  It 's  a  long  story,  and 
I  'm  afraid  I  could  n't  make  you  understand, 
unless  you  had  seen  something  of  Boston  so 
ciety." 

"  Mr.  Arbuton,"  said  Kitty,  abruptly  plunging 
to  the  bottom  of  the  subject  on  which  they  had 
been  hovering,  "  I  'm  dreadfully  afraid  that  what 
you  said  to  me  —  what  you  asked  of  me,  yester 
day  —  was  all  through  a  misunderstanding.  I  'in 
afraid  that  you  've  somehow  mistaken  me  and  my 
circumstances,  and  that  somehow  I  've  innocently 
helped  on  your  mistake." 

"  There  is  no  mistake,"  he  answered,  eagerly, 
"  about  my  loving  you  !  " 

Kitty  did  not  look  up,  nor  answer  this  outburst, 
which  flattered  while  it  pained  her.  She  said, 
"  I  've  been  so  much  mistaken  myself,  and  I  've 
been  so  long  finding  it  out,  that  I  should  feel 
anxious  to  have  you  know  just  what  kind  of  girl 
you  'd  asked  to  be  your  wife,  before  I  — 

"  What  1 " 

"  Nothing.  But  I  should  want  you  to  know 
that  in  many  things  my  life  has  been  very,  very 
different  from  yours.  The  first  thing  I  can  re 
member  —  you  '11  think  I  'm  more  autobiograph 
ical  than  our  driver  at  Ha-Ha  Bay,  even,  but  I 
must  tell  you  all  this  —  is  about  Kansas,  where 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  235 

we  had  moved  from  Illinois,  and  of  our  having 
hardly  enough  to  eat  or  wear,  and  of  my  mother 
grieving  over  our  privations.  At  last,  when  my 
father  was  killed,"  she  said,  dropping  her  voice, 
"  in  front  of  our  own  door  — 

Mr.  Arbuton  gave  a  start.      "  Killed  1 " 

"Yes  ;  did  n't  you  know?  Or  no  :  how  could 
you  1  He  was  shot  by  the  Missourians." 

Whether  it  was  not  hopelessly  out  of  taste  to 
have  a  father-in-law  who  had  been  shot  by  the 
Missourians  1  Whether  he  could  persuade  Kitty 
to  suppress  that  part  of  her  history  1  That  she 
looked  very  pretty,  sitting  there,  with  her  earnest 
eyes  lifted  toward  his.  These  things  flashed  wil 
fully  through  Mr.  Arbu ton's  mind. 

"  My  father  was  a  Free-State  man,"  continued 
Kitty,  in  a  tone  of  pride.  "  He  was  n't  when  he 
first  went  to  Kansas,"  she  added  simply  ;  while 
Mr.  Arbuton  groped  among  his  recollections  of  that 
forgotten  srfu^Ie^r  some  association  with  these 
names,  keenly  ^feeling  the  squalor  of  it  all,  and 
thinking  still  how  very  pretty  she  was.  "  He 
went  out  there  to  publish  a  proslavery  paper. 
But  when  he  found  out  what  the  Border  Ruffians 
really  were,  he  turned  against  them.  He  used  to 
be  very  bitter  about  my  uncle's  having  become  an 
Abolitionist ;  they  had  had  a  quarrel  about  it ; 


236  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

but  father  wrote  to  him  from  Kansas,  and  they 
made  it  up  ;  and  before  father  died  he  was  able  to 
tell  mother  that  we  were  to  go  to  uncle's.  But 
mother  was  sick  then,  and  she  only  lived  a  month 
after  father  ;  and  when  my  cousin  came  out  to  get 
us,  just  before  she  died,  there  was  scarcely  a  crust 
of  cornbread  in  our  cabin.  It  seemed  like  heaven 
to  get  to  Eriecreek  ;  but  even  at  Eriecreek  we  live 
in  a  way  that  I  am  afraid  you  would  n't  respect. 
My  uncle  has  just  enough,  and  we  are  very  plain 
people  indeed.  I  suppose,"  continued  the  young 
girl  meekly,  "  that  I  have  n't  had  at  all  what 
you  'd  call  an  education.  Uncle  told  me  what  to 
read,  at  first,  and  after  that  I  helped  myself.  It 
seemed  to  come  naturally  ;  but  don't  you  see  that 
it  was  n't  an  education  1 " 

"  I  beg  pardon,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton,  with  a  blush; 
for  he  had  just  then  lost  the  sense  of  what  she 
said  in  the  music  of  her  voice,  as  it  hesitated  over 
these  particulars  of  her  history. 

"  I  mean,"  explained  Kitty,  "  that  I  'm  afraid  I 
must  be  very  one-sided.  I  'm  dreadfully  ignorant 
of  a  great  many  things.  I  have  n't  any  accom 
plishments,  only  the  little  bit  of  singing  and  play 
ing  that  you  've  heard  ;  I  could  n't  tell  a  good 
picture  from  a  bad  one  ;  I  've  never  been  to  the 
opera  ;  I  don't  know  anything  about  society.  Now 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  237 

just  imagine,"  cried  Kitty,  with  sublime  impar 
tiality,  "  such  a  girl  as  that  in  Boston  ! " 

Even  Mr.  Arhuton  could  not  help  smiling  at 
this  comic  earnestness,  while  she  resumed  :  "  At 
home  my  cousins  and  I  do  all  kinds  of  things  that 
the  ladies  whom  you  know  have  done  for  them. 
We  do  our  own  work,  for  one  thing,"  she  contin 
ued,  with  a  sudden  treacherous  misgiving  that 
what  she  was  saying  might  be  silly  and  not  heroic, 
but  bravely  stifling  her  doubt.  "  My  cousin  Vir 
ginia  is  housekeeper,  and  Rachel  does  the  sewing, 
and  I  'm  a  kind  of  maid-of- all-work." 

Mr.  Arbuton  listened  respectfully,  vainly  striv 
ing  for  some  likeness  of  Miss  Ellison  in  the  figure 
of  the  different  second-girls  who,  during  life,  had 
taken  his  card,  or  shown  him  into  drawing-rooms, 
or  waited  on  him  at  table  ;  failing  in  this,  he, .tried 
her  in  the  character  of  daughter  of  that  kind  of 
farm-house  where  they  take  summer  boarders  and 
do  their  own  work  ;  but  evidently  the  Ellisons 
were  not  of  that  sort  either ;  and  he  gave  it  up 
and  was  silent,  not  knowing  what  to  say,  while 
Kitty,  a  little  piqued  by  his  silence,  went  on  : 
"  We  're  not  ashamed,  you  understand,  of  our 
ways  ;  there  's  such  a  thing  as  being  proud  of  not 
being  proud  ;  and  that  's  what  we  are,  or  what  I 
am  ;  for  the  rest  are  not  mean  enough  ever  to 


238  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

think  about  it,  and  once  I  was  n't,  either.  But 
that 's  the  kind  of  life  I  'm  used  to  ;  and  though 
I  've  read  of  other  kinds  of  life  a  great  deal,  1  've 
not  been  brought  up  to  anything  different,  don't 
you  understand  1  And  maybe  —  I  don't  know  — 
I  might  n't  like  or  respect  your  kind  of  people  any 
more  than  they  did  me.  My  uncle  taught  us 
ideas  that  are  quite  different  from  yours  ;  and 
what  if  I  should  n't  be  able  to  give  them  up  ? " 

"  There  is  only  one  thing  1  know  or  see  :  I  love 
you  ! "  he  said,  passionately,  and  drew  nearer  by  a 
step ;  but  she  put  out  her  hand  and  repelled  him 
with  a  gesture. 

"  Sometimes  you  might  be  ashamed  of  me  before 
those  you  knew  to  be  my  inferiors,  —  really  com 
mon  and  coarse  -  minded  people,  but  regularly 
educated,  and  used  to  money  and  fashion.  I 
should  cower  before  them,  and  I  never  could  for 
give  you." 

"  I  've  one  answer  to  all  this  :  T  love  you  !  " 

Kitty  flushed  in  generous  admiration  of  his 
magnanimity,  and  said,  with  more  of  tenderness 
than  she  had  yet  felt  towards  him,  "  1  'm  sorry 
that  I  can't  answer  you  now,  as  you  wish,  Mr. 
Arbuton." 

"  But  you  will,  to-morrow." 

She  shook  her  head.     "  I  don't  know  ;  0, 1  don't 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  239 

know  !  I  've  been  thinking  of  something.  That 
Mrs.  March  asked  me  to  visit  her  in.  Boston  ;  but 
we  had  given  up  doing  so,  because  of  the  long 
delay  here.  If  I  asked  my  cousins,  they  'd  still  go 
home  that  way.  It 's  too  bad  to  put  you  off  again  ; 
but  you  must  see  me  in  Boston,  if  only  for  a  day 
or  two,  and  after  you  've  got  back  into  your  old 
associations  there,  before  I  answer  you.  I  'm  in 
great  trouble.  You  must  wait,  or  I  must  say  no." 

"  I  '11  wait,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton. 

"  0,  thank  you,"  sighed  Kitty,  grateful  for  this 
patience,  and  not  for  the  chance  of  still  winning 
him  ;  "you.  are  very  forbearing,  I  'in  sure." 

She  again  put  forth  her  hand,  but  not  now  to 
.repel  him.  He  clasped  it,  and  kept,  it  in  his,  then 
impulsively  pressed  it  against  his  lips. 

Colonel  and  Mrs.  Ellison  had  been  watching  the 
whole  pantomime,  forgotten. 

"Well,"  said  the  colonel,  "I  suppose  that's  the 
end  of  the  play,  is  n't  it  1  I  don't  like  it,  Fanny ; 
I  don't  like  it." 

"  Hush  !  "  whispered  Mrs.  Ellison. 

They  were  both  puzzled  when  Kitty  and  Mr. 
Arburton  came  towards  them  with  anxious  faces. 
Kitty  was  painfully  revolving  in  her  mind  what 
she  had  just  said,  and  thinking'she  had  said  not  so 
much  as  she  meant  and  yet  so  much  more,  and 


240  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

tormenting  herself  with  the  fear  that  she  had  been 
at  once  too  hold  and  too  meek  in  her  demand  for 
longer  delay.  Did  it  not  give  him  further  claim 
upon  her  1  Must  it  not  have  seemed  a  very  auda 
cious  thing  1  What  right  had  she  to  make  it,  and 
how  could  she  now  finally  say  no  1  Then  the  mat 
ter  of  her  explanation  to  him  :  was  it  in  the  least 
what  she  meant  to  say  1  Must  it  not  give  him 
an  idea  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  poverty  in  her 
life  which  she  knew  had  not  been  in  it  ?  Would 
he  not  believe,  in  spite  of  her  boasts,  that  she  was 
humiliated  before  him  by  a  feeling  of  essential  in 
feriority  1  0,  had  she  boasted  1  What  she  meant 
to  do  was  just  to  make  him  understand  clearly 
what  she  was ;  but,  had  she  1  Could  he  be  made 
to  understand  this  with  what  seemed  his  narrow 
conception  of  things  .outside  of  his  own  experience  1 
Was  it  worth  while  to  try  1  Did  she  care  enough 
for  him  to  make  the  effort  desirable1?  Had  she 
made  it  for  his  sake,  or  in  the  interest  of  truth, 
merely,  or  in  self-defence '? 

These  and  a  thousand  other  like  questions  beset 
'.  her  the  whole  way  home  to  Quebec,  amid  the  fre 
quent  pauses  of  the  talk,  and  underneath  whatever 
she  was  saying.  Half  the  time  she  answered  yes 
or  no  to  them,  and  not  to  what  Dick,  or  Fanny,  or 
Mr.  Arbuton  had  asked  her ;  she  was  distraught 


A   Okancs  Acquaintance.  241 

with  their  recurrence,  as  they  teased  about  her 
like  angry  bees,  and  one  now  and  then  settled,  and 
stung  and  stung.  Through  the  whole  night,  too, 
they  pursued  her  in  dreams  with  pitiless  iteration 
and  fantastic  change ;  and  at  dawn  she  was  awak 
ened  by  voices  calling  up  to  her  from  the  Ursu- 
liiies'  Garden,  —  the  slim,  pale  nun  crying  out,  in  a 
lamentable  accent,  that  all  men  were  false  and 
there  was  no  shelter  save  the  convent  or  the  grave, 
and  the  comfortable  sister  bemoaning  herself  that 
on  meagre  days  Madame  de  la  Peltrie  ate  nothing 
but  choke-cherries  from  Chateau-Bigot. 

Kitty  rose  and  dressed  herself,  and  sat  at  the 
window,  and  watched  the  morning  come  into  the 
garden  below :  first,  a  tremulous  flush  of  the 
heavens ;  then  a  rosy  light  on  the  silvery  roofs 
and  gables ;  then  little  golden  aisles  among  the 
lilacs  and  hollyhocks.  The  tiny  flower-beds  just 
under  her  window  were  left,  with  their  snap 
dragons  and  larkspurs,  in  dew  and  shadow ;  the 
small  dog  stood  on  the  threshold,  and  barked 
uneasily  when  the  bell  rang  in  the  Ursuliues' 
Chapel,  where  the  nuns  were  at  matins. 

It  was  Sunday,  and  a  soft  tranquillity  blest  the 
cool  air  in  which  the  young  girl  bathed  her  troub 
led  spirit.  A  faint  anticipative  homesickness 
mingled  now  with  her  nightlong  anxiety,  —  a  pity 
11  p 


242  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

for  herself  that  on  the  morrow  she  must  leave 
these  pretty  sights,  which  had  become  so  dear  to 
her  that  she  could  not  but  feel  herself  native 
among  them.  She  must  go  back  to  Eriecreek, 
which  was  not  a  walled  city,  and  had  not  a  stone 
building,  much  less  a  cathedral  or  convent,  within 
its  borders ;  and  though  she  dearly  loved  those 
under  her  uncle's  roof  there,  yet  she  had  to  own 
that,  beyond  that  shelter,  there  was  little  in  Erie- 
creek  to  touch  the  heart  or  take  the  fancy  ;  that 
the  village  was  ugly,  and  the  village  people  mor 
tally  dull,  narrow,  and  uncongenial.  Why  was 
not  her  lot  cast  somewhere  else  1  Why  should  she 
not  see  more  of  the  world  that  she  had  found  so 
fair,  and  which  all  her  aspirations  had  fitted  her 
to  enjoy  1  Quebec  had  been  to  her  a  rapture  of 
beautiful  antiquity  ;  but  Europe,  but  London,  Yen- 
ice,  Rome,  those  infinitely  older  and  more  storied 
cities  of  which  she  had  lately  talked  so  much  with 
Mr.  Arbuton,  —  why  should  she  not  see  them  1 

Here,  for  the  guilty  space  of  a  heat-lightning 
flash,  Kitty  wickedly/entertained  the  thought  of 
marrying  Mr.  Arbuton  for  the  sake  of  a  bridal  trip 
to  Europe,  and  bade  love  and  the  fitness  of  things 
and  the  incompatibility  of  Boston  and  Eriecreek 
traditions  take  care  of  themselves.  But  then  she 
blushed  for  her  meanness,  and  tried  to  atone  for  it 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  2i3 

as  she  could  by  meditating  the  praiso  of  Mr. 
Arbnton.  She  felt  remorse  for  having,  as  he 
had  proved  yesterday,  undervalued  and  misunder 
stood  him ;  and  she  was  willing  now  to  think  him 
even  more  magnanimous  than  his  generous  words 
and  conduct  showed  him.  It  would  be  a  bas^  re 
turn  for  his  patience  to  accept  him  from  a  worldly 
ambition ;  a  man  of  his  noble  spirit  merited  the 
best  that  love  could  give.  But  she  respected  him  ; 
at  last  she  respected  him  fully  and  entirely,  and 
she  could  tell  him  that  at  any  rate. 

The  words  in  which  he  had  yesterday  protested 
his  love  for  her  repeated  themselves  constantly  in 
her  re  very.  If  he  should  speak  them  again  after 
he  had  seen  her  in  Boston,  in  the  light  by  which 
she  was  anxious  to  be  tested,  —  she  did  not  know 
what  she  should  say. 


244  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

XIII. 
ORDEAL. 

HEY  had  not  planned  to  go  anywhfere 
that  day  ;  but  after  church  they  found 
themselves  with  the  loveliest  afternoon 
of  their  stay  at  Quebec  to  be  passed  somehow, 
and  it  was  a  pity  to  pass  it  indoors,  the  colonel 
said  at  their  early  dinner.  They  canvassed  the 
attractions  of  the  different  drives  out  of  town,  and 
they  decided  upon  that  to  Lorette.  The  Ellisons 
had  already  been  there,  but  Mr.  Arbuton  had  not, 
and  it  was  from  a  dim  motive  of  politeness  towards 
him  that  Mrs.  Ellison  chose  the  excursion  ;  though 
this  did  not  prevent  her  from  wondering  aloud 
afterward,  from  time  to  time,  why  she  had  chosen 
it.  He  was  restless  and  absent,  'and  answered  at 
random  when  points  of  the  debate  were  referred  to 
him,  but  he  eagerly  assented  to  the  conclusion, 
and  was  in  haste  to  set  out. 

The  road  to  Lorette  is  through  St.  John's  Gate, 
down  into  the  outlying  meadows  and  rye-fields, 
where,  crossing  and  recrossing  the  swift  St.  Charles, 
it  finally  rises  at  Lorette  above  the  level  of  the 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  245 

citadel.  It  is  a  lonelier  road  than  that  to  Mont- 
morenci,  and  the  scattering  cottages  upon  it  have 
not  the  well-to-do  prettiness,  the  operatic  repair, 
of  stone-built  Beauport.  But  they  are  charming, 
nevertheless,  and  the  people  seem  to  be  remoter 
from  modern  influences.  Peasant-girls,  in  purple 
gowns  and  broad  straw  hats,  and  not  the  fashions 
of  the  year  before  last,  now  and  then  appeared 
to  our  acquaintance  ;  near  one  ancient  cottage  an 
old  man,  in  the  true  habitant's  red  woollen  cap 
with  a  long  fall,  leaned  over  the  bars  of  his  gate 
and  smoked  a  short  pipe. 

By  and  by  they  came  to  Jetme-Lorette,  an 
almost  ideally  pretty  hamlet,  bordering  the  road 
on  either  hand  with  galleried  and  balconied  little 
houses,  from  which  the  people  bowed  to  them  as  they 
passed,  and  piously  enclosing  in  its  midst  the  village 
church  and  churchyard.  They  soon  after  reached 
Lorette  itself,  which  they  might  easily  have  known 
for  an  Indian  town  by  its  unkempt  air,  and  the 
irregular  attitudes  in  which  the  shabby  cabins 
lounged  along  the  lanes  that  wandered  through  it, 
even  if  the  Ellisons  had  not  known  it  already,  or 
if  they  had  not  been  welcomed  by  a  po.mp  of 
Indian  boys  and  girls  of  all  shades  of  darkness. 
The  girls  had  bead-wrought  moccasins  and  work- 
bags  to  sell,  and  the  boys  bore  bows  and  arrows 


246  A    Chance  Acquaintance. 

and  burst  into  loud  cries  of  "  Shoot !  shoot !  grand 
shoot !  Put-up-pennies  !  shoot-the-pennies  !  Grand 
shoot ! "  When  they  recognized  the  colonel,  as 
they  did  after  the  party  had  dismounted  in  front 
of  the  church,  they  renewed  these  cries  with 
greater  vehemence. 

"  Now,  Richard,"  implored  his  wife,  you  're  not 
going  to  let  those  little  pests  go  through  all  that 
shooting  performance  again  1 " 

"  I  must.  It  is  expected  of  me  whenever  I  come 
to  Lorette  ;  and  I  would  never  be  the  man  to  neglect 
an  ancient  observance  of  this  kind."  The  colonel 
stuck  a  copper  into  the  hard  sand  as  he  spoke,  and  a 
small  storm  of  arrows  hurtled  around  it.  Present 
ly  it  flew  into  the  air,  and  a  fair-faced,  blue-eyed  boy 
picked  it  up  :  he  won  most  of  the  succeeding  coins. 

"  There  's  an  aborigine  of  pure  blood,"  remarked 
the  colonel;  "his  ancestors  came  from  Normandy 
two  hundred  years  ago.  That 's  the  reason  he 
uses  the  bow  so  much  better  than  these  coffee- 
colored  impostors." 

They  went  into  the  chapel,  which  stands  on  the 
site  of  the  ancient  church  burnt  not  long  ago.  It 
is  small,  and  it  is  bare  and  rude  inside,  with  only 
the  commonest  ornamentation  about  the  altar,  on 
one  side  of  which  was  the  painted  wooden  statue 
of  a  nun,  on  the  other  that  of  a  priest,  —  slight 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  247 

enough  commemoration  of  those  who  had  suffered 
so  much  for  the  hopeless  race  that  lingers  and 
wastes  at  Lorette  in  incurable  squalor  and  wild- 
ness.  They  are  Christians  after  their  fashion,  this 
poor  remnant  of  the  mighty  Huron  nation  con 
verted  by  the  Jesuits  and  crushed  by  the  Iroquois 
in  the  far-western  wilderness  :  but  whatever  they 
are  at  heart,  they  are  still  savage  in  countenance, 
and  these  boys  had  faces  of  wolves  and  foxes. 
They  followed  their  visitors  into  the  church,  where 
there  was  only  an  old  woman  praying  to  a  picture, 
beneath  which  hung  a  votive  hand  and  foot,  and 
a  few  young  Huron  suppliants  with  very  sleek  hair, 
whose  wandering  devotions  seemed  directed  now 
at  the  strangers,  and  now  at  the  wooflen  effigy 
of  the  House  of  St.  Ann  borne  by  two  gilt  angels 
above  the  high-altar.  There  was  no  service,  and 
the  visitors  soon  quitted  the  chapel  amid  the 
clamors  of  the  boys  outside.  Some  young  girls,  in 
the  dress  of  our  period,  were  promenading  up  and 
down  the  road  with  their  arms  about  each  other 
and  their  eyes  alert  for  the  effect  upon  spectators. 
From  one  of  the  village  lanes  came  swaggering 
towards  the  visitors  a  figure  of  aggressive  fashion, 
—  a  very  buckish  young  fellow,  with  a  heavy  black 
mustache  and  black  eyes,  who  wore  a  jaunty  round 
hat,  blue  checked  trousers,  a  white  vest,  and  a 


248  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

morning-coat  of  blue  diagonals,  buttoned  across 
his  breast ;  in  his  hand  he  swung  a  light  cane. 

"  That  is  the  son  of  the  chief,  Paul  Picot,"  whis 
pered  the  driver. 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  the  colonel,  instantly ;  and 
the  young  gentleman  nodded.  "Can  you  tell  me 
if  we  could  see  the  chief  to-day  1 " 

"  0  yes  ! "  answered  the  notary  in  English,  "  my 
father  is  chief.  You  can  see  him  "  ;  and  passed  on 
with  a  somewhat  supercilious  air. 

The  colonel,  in  his  first  hours  at  Quebec,  had 
bought  at  a  bazaar  of  Indian  wares  the  photograph 
of  an  Indian  warrior  in  a  splendor  of  factitious 
savage  panoply.  It  was  called  "  The  Last  of  the 
Hurons,"  and  the  colonel  now  avenged  himself  for 
the  cnrtness  of  M.  Picot  by  styling  him  "  The  Next 
to  the  Last  of  the  Hurons." 

"  Well,"  said  Fanny,  who  had  a  wife's  willing 
ness  to  see  her  husband  occasionally  snubbed,  "  I 
don't  know  why  yon  asked  him.  I  'm  sure  nobody 
wants  to  see  that  old  chief  and  his  wretched  bead 
trumpery  again." 

"  My  dear, "  answered  the  colonel,  "  wherever 
Americans  go,  they  like  to  be  presented  at  court. 
Mr.  Arbuton,  here,  I  've  no  doubt  has  been  intro 
duced  to  the  crowned  heads  of  the  Old  World,  and 
longs  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  sovereign  of  Lorette. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  249 

Besides,  I  always  call  upon  the  reigning  prince  when 
I  come  to  Lorette.  The  coldness  of  the  heir-appar 
ent  shall  not  repel  me." 

The  colonel  led  the  way  up  the  principal  lane  of 
the  village.  Some  of  the  cabins  were  ineffectually 
whitewashed,  but  none  of  them  were  so  uncleanly 
within  as  the  outside  prophesied.  At  the  doors  and 
windows  sat  women  and  young  girls  working  moc 
casins  ;  here  and  there  stood  a  well-fed  mother  of  a 
family  with  an  infant  Huron  in  her  arms.  They  all 
showed  the  traces  of  white  blood,  as  did  the  little 
ones  who  trooped  after  the  strangers  and  demanded 
charity  as  clamorously  as  so  many  Italians ;  only 
a  few  faces  were  of  a  clear  dark,  as  if  stained  by 
^walnut-juice,  and  it  was  plain  that  the  Hurpns  were 
fading,  if  not  dying  out.  They  responded  with  a 
queer  mixture  of  French  liveliness  and  savage  sto 
lidity  to  the  colonel's  jocose  advances.  Great  lean 
dogs  lounged  about  the  thresholds ;  they  and  the 
women  and  children  were  alone  visible  ;  there  were 
no  men.  None  of  the  houses  were  fenced,  save  the 
chief's  ;  this  stood  behind  a  neat  grass  plot,  across 
which,  at  the  moment  our  travellers  came  up,  two 
youngish  women  were  trailing  in  long  morning- 
gowns  and  eye-glasses.  The  chief's  house  was  a 
handsome  cottage,  papered  and  carpeted,  with  a 
huge  stove  in  the  parlor,  where  also  stood  a  table 
11* 


250  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

exposing  the  bead  trumpery  of  Mrs.  Ellison's  scorn. 
A  full-bodied  elderly  man  with  quick,  black  eyes 
and  a  tranquil,  dark  face  stood  near  it ;  he  wore  a 
half-military  coat  with  brass  buttons,  and  -was  the 
chief  Picot.  At  sight  of  the  colonel  he  smiled 
slightly  and  gave  his  hand  in  welcome.  Then  he  sold 
such  of  his  wares  as  the  colonel  wanted,  rather  dis 
couraging  than  inviting  purchase.  He  talked,  upon 
some  urgency,  of  his  people,  who,  he  said,  numbered 
three  hundred,  and  were  a  few  of  them  farmers, 
but  were  mostly  hunters,  and,  in  the  service  of  the 
officers  of  the  garrison,  spent  the  winter  in  the 
chase.  He  spoke  fair  English,  but  reluctantly,  and 
he  seemed  glad  to  have  his  guests  go,  who  were 
indeed  willing  enough  to  leave  him. 

Mr.  Arbuton  especially  was  willing,  for  he  had 
been  longing  to  find  himself  alone  with  Kitty,  of 
which  he  saw  no  hope  while  the  idling  about  the 
village  lasted. 

The  colonel  bought  an  insane  watch-pocket -for 
une  dolleur  from  a  pretty  little  girl  as  they  returned 
through  the  village ;  but  he  forbade  the  boj'S  any 
more  archery  at  his  expense,  with  "  Pas  de  grand 
shoot,  now,  mes  enfans  !  —  Friends,"  he  added  to 
his  own  party,  "  we  have  the  Falls  of  Lorette  and 
the  better  part  of  the  afternoon  still  before  us ; 
how  shall  we  employ  them  ?  " 


A   Chance  Acquaintance,  251 

Mrs.  Ellison  and  Kitty  did  not  know,  and  Mr. 
Arbuton  did  not  know,  as  they  sauntered  down 
past  the  chapel,  to  the  stone  mill  that  feeds  its 
industry  from  the  beauty  of  the  fall.  The  cascade, 
with  two  or  three  successive  leaps  above  the  road, 
plunges  headlong  down  a  steep  crescent-shaped 
slope,  and  hides  its  foamy  whiteness  in  the  dark- 
foliaged  ravine  below.  It  is  a  wonder  of  graceful 
motion,  of  iridescent  lights  and  delicious  shadows ; 
a  shape  of  loveliness  that  seems  instinct  with  a 
conscious  life.  Its  beauty,  like  that  of  all  natural 
marvels  on  our  continent,  is  on  a  generous  scale  ; 
and  now  the  spectators,  after  viewing  it  from  the 
mill,  passed  for  a  different  prospect  of  it  to  the 
other  shore,  and  there  the  colonel  and  Fanny 
wandered  a  little  farther  down  the  glen,  leaving 
Kitty  with  Mr.  Arbuton.  The  affair  between  them 
was  in  such  a  puzzling  phase,  that  there  was  as 
much  reason  for  as  against  this  :  nobody  could 
do  anything,  not  even  openly  recognize  it.  Besides, 
it  was  somehow  very  interesting  to  Kitty  to  be 
there  alone  with  him,  and  she_thought  that  if  all 
were  well,  and  he  and  she  were  really  engaged,  the 
sense  of  recent  betrothal  could  be  nowhere  else 
half  so  sweet  as  in  that  wild  and  lovely  place.  She 
began  to  imagine  a  bliss  so  divine,  that  it  would 
have  been  strange  if  she  had  not  be^nn  to  desire 


252  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

it,  and  it  was  with  a  half-reluctant,  half-acquiescent 
thrill  that  she  suffered  him  to  touch  upon  what 
was  first  in  both  their  minds. 

"  I  thought  you  had  agreed  not  to  talk  of  that 
again  for  the  present,"  she  feebly  protested. 

"  No  ;  I  was  not  forbidden  to  tell  you  I  loved 
you  ;  I  only  consented  to  wait  for  my  answer  ; 
but  now  I  shall  break  my  promise.  I  cannot  wait. 
I  think  the  conditions  you  make  dishonor  me." 
said  Mr.  Arbuton,  with  an  impetuosity  that  fas 
cinated  her. 

"  0,  how  can  you  say  such  a  thing  as  that  1 "  she 
asked,  liking  him  for  his  resentment  of  conditions 
that  he  found  humiliating,  while  her  heart  leaped 
remorseful  to  her  lips  for  having  imposed  them. 
''You  know  very  well  why  I  wanted  to  delay;  and 
you  know  that  —  that  —  if — I  had  done  anything 
to  wound  you,  I  never  could  forgive  myself." 

"  But  you  doubted  me,  all  the  same,"  he  re 
joined. 

"  Did  I?  I  thought  it  was  myself  that  I 
doubted."  She  was  stricken  with  sudden  mis 
giving  as  to  what  had  seemed  so  well ;  her  words 
tended  rapidly  she  could  not  tell  whither. 

"  But  why  do  you  doubt  yourself?" 

"  I  —  I  don't  know." 

"  No,"  he  said  bitterly,  "  for  it 's  really  me  that 


A   Ctiance  Acquaintance.  253 

you  doubt.  I  can't  understand  what  you  have 
seen  in  me  that  makes  you  believe  anything  could 
change  me  towards  you,"  he  added  with  a  kind  of 
humbleness  that  touched  her.  "I  could  have  borne 
to  think  that  I  was  not  worthy  of  you." 

"  Not  worthy  of  me  !  I  never  dreamed  of  such  a 
thing." 

"  But  to  have  you  suspect  me  of  such  mean 
ness— 

"  0  Mr.  Arbutou  !  " 

—  "As  you  hinted  yesterday,  is  a  disgrace  that 
I  ought  not  to  bear.  I  have  thought  of  it  all 
night ;  and  I  must  have  my  answer  now,  whatever 
it  is." 

She  did  not  speak ;  for  every  word  that  she  had 
uttered  had  only  served  to  close  escape  behind  her. 
She  did  not  know  what  to  do  ;  she  looked  up  at 
him  for  help.  He  said  with  an  accent  of  meek 
ness  pathetic  from  him,  "  Why  must  you  still 
doubt  me]" 

"  I  don't,"  she  scarcely  more  than  breathed. 

"  Then  you  are  mine,  now,  without  waiting,  and 
forever,"  he  cried  ;  and  caught  her  to  him  in  a 
swift  embrace. 

She' only  said,  U0h!"  in  a  tone  of  gentle  re 
proach,  yet  clung  to  him  a  helpless  moment  as  for 
rescue  from  himself.  She  looked  at  him  in  blank 


254  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

pallor,  striving  to  realize  the  tender  violence  in 
which  his  pulses  wildly  exulted  ;  then  a  burning 
flush  dyed  her  face,  and  tears  came  into  her  eyes. 
"  0,  I  hope  you  '11  never  be  sorry,"  she  said  ;  and 
then,  "  Do  let  us  go,"  for  -she  had  no  distinct 
desire  save  for  movement,  for  escape  from  that 
place. 

Her  heart  had  been  surprised,  she  hardly  knew 
how  ;  but  at  his  kiss  a  novel  tenderness  had  leaped 
to  life  in  it.  She  suffered  him  to  put  her  hand 
upon  his  arm,  and  then  she  began  to  feel  a  strange 
1  pride  in  his  being  tall  and  handsome,  and  hers. 
But  she  kept  thinking  as  they  walked,  "  I  hope 
he  '11  never  be  sorry,'1  and  she  said  it  again,  half  in 
jest.  He  pressed  her  hand  against  his  heart,  and 
met  her  look  with  one  of  protest  and  reassurance, 
that  presently  melted  into  something  sweeter  yet. 
He  said,  "  What  beautiful  eyes  you  have  !  I  noticed 
the  long  lashes  when  I  saw  you  on  the  Saguenay 
boat,  and  I  could  n't  get  away  from  them." 

"  0  please,  don't  speak  of  that  dreadful  time  !  " 
cried  Kitty. 

"No?    Why  not  1" 

"  0  because  !  I  think  it  was  such  a  bold  kind 
of  accident  my  taking  your  arm  by  mistake  ;  and 
the  whole  next  day  has  always  been  a  perfect 
horror  to  me." 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  255 

He  looked  at  her  in  questioning  amaze. 

"  I  think  I  was  very  pert  with  yon  all  day,  — 
and  I  don't  think   I'm   pert  naturally, — taking 
you  up  about   the   landscape,    and  twitting   yon 
about   the    Saguenay    scenery    and    legends,    yon 
know.     But  I  thought  yon  were  trying  to  put  me 
down,  —  you  are  rather  down-putting  at  times,  — 
and  I  admired  you,  and  I  could  n't  bear  it." 

"  Oh ! "  said  Mr.  Arbuton.  He  dimly  recollected, 
as  if  it  had  been  in  some  former  state  of  existence, 
that  there  were  things  he  had  not  approved  in 
Kitty  that  day,  but  now  he  met  her  penitence 
with  a  smile  and  another  pressure  of  the  hand. 
"  Well,  then,"  he  said,  "  if  you  don't  like  to  recall 
that  time,  let 's  go  back  of  it  to  the  day  I  met  you 
on  Goat  Island  Bridge  at  Niagara." 

"  0,  did  you  see  me  there  1  I  thought  you 
did  n't ;  but  /  saw  you.  You  had  on  a  blue 
cravat,"  she  answered  ;  and  he  returned  with  as 
much  the  air  of  coherency  as  if  really  continuing 
the  same  train  of  thought,  "  You  won't  think  it 
necessary  to  visit  Boston,  now,  I  suppose,"  and  he 
smiled  triumphantly  upon  her.  "  I  fancy  that  I 
have  now  a  better  right  to  introduce  you  there 
than  your  South  End  friends." 

Kitty  smiled,  too.  "  I  'm  willing  to  wait.  But 
don't  you  think  you  ought  to  see  Eriecreek  before 


256  A   Oka  nee  Acquaintance. 

you  promise  too  solemnly?  I  can't  allow  that 
there  's  anything  serious,  till  you  've  seen  me  at 
home." 

They  had  been  going,  for  no  reason  that  they 
knew,  back  to  the  country  inn  near  which  you  pur 
chase  admittance  to  a  certain  view  of  the  falls,  and 
now  they  sat  down  on  the  piazza,  somewhat  apart 
from  other  people  who  were  there,  as  Mr.  Arbuton 
said,  "  0,  I  shall  visit  Eriecrcek  soon  enough,,  But 
I  shall  not  come  to  put  myself  or  you  to  the  proof. 
I  don't  ask  to  see  you  at  home  before  claiming  you 
forever." 

Kitty  murmured,  "  Ah  !  you  are  more  generous 
than  I  was." 

"  I  doubt  it." 

"  0  yes,  you  are.  But  I  wonder  if  you  '11  be 
able  to  find  Eriecreek." 

"  Is  it  on  the  map  1 " 

"  It  's  on  the  county  map ;  and  so  is  Uncle 
Jack's  lot  on  it,  and  a  picture  of  his  house,  for  that 
matter.  They  '11  all  be  standing  on  the  piazza 
—  something  like  this  one  —  when  you  come  up. 
You  '11  know  Uncle  Jack  by  his  big  gray  beard, 
and  his  bushy  eyebrows,  and  his  boots,  which 
he  won't  have  blacked,  and  his  Leghorn  hat, 
which  we  can't  get  him  to  change.  The  girls  will 
be  there  with  him,  —  Virginia  all  red  and  heated 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  257 

with  having  got  supper  for  you,  and  Rachel  with 
the  family  mending  in  her  hand,  —  and  they  '11 
both  come  running  down  the  walk  to  welcome  you. 
How  will  you  like  it?" 

Mr.  Arbuton  suspected  the  gross  caricature  of 
this  picture,  and  smiled  securely  at  it.  "  I  shall 
like  it  well  enough,"  he  said,  "  if  you  run  down 
with  them.  Where  shall  you  be  1 " 

"  I  forgot.  I  shall  be  up  stairs  in  my  room, 
peeping  through  the  window-blinds,  to  see  how  you 
take  it.  Then  I  shall  come  down,  and  receive  you 
with  dignity  in  the  parlor,  but  after  supper  you  '11 
have  to  excuse  me  while  I  help  with  the  dishes. 
Uncle  Jack  will  talk  to  you.  He  '11  talk  to  you 
about  Boston.  He  's  much  fonder  of  Boston  than 
you  are,  even."  And  here  Kitty  broke  off  with  a 
laugh,  thinking  what  a  very  different  Boston  her 
Uncle  Jack's  was  from  Mr.  Arbuton's,  and  mali 
ciously  diverted  with  what  she  conceived  of  their 
mutual  bewilderment  in  trying  to  get  some  com 
mon  stand-point.  He  had  risen  from  his  chair,  and 
was  now  standing  a  few  paces  from  her,  looking 
toward  the  fall,  as  if  by  looking  he  might  delay 
the  coming  of  the  colonel  and  Fanny. 

She  checked  her  merriment  a  moment  to  take 
note  of  two  ladies  who  were  coming  up  the  path 
towards  the  porch  where  she  was  sitting.  Mr 

Q 


258  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

Arbuton  did  not  sec  thorn.  The  ladies  mounted 
the  steps,  and  turned  slowly  and  languidly  to  sur 
vey  the  company.  But  at  sight  of  Mr.  Arbuton, 
one  of  them  advanced  directly  toward  him,  with 
exclamations  of  surprise  and  pleasure,  and  he  with 
a  stupefied  face  and  a  mechanical  movement  turned 
to  meet  her. 

She  was  a  lady  of  more  than  middle  age,  dressed 
with  certain  personal  audacities  of  color  and  shape, 
rather  than  overdressed,  and  she  thrust  forward, 
in  expression  of  her  amazement,  a  very  small  hand, 
wonderfully  well  gloved  ;  her  manner  was  full  of 
the  anxiety  of  a  woman  who  had  fought  hard  for 
a  high  place  in  society,  and  yet  suggested  a  latent 
hatred  of  people  who,  in  yielding  to  her,  had 
made  success  bitter  and  humiliating. 

Her  companion  was  a  young  and  very  handsome 
girl,  exquisitely  dressed,  and  just  so  far  within  the 
fashion  as  to  show  her  already  a  mistress  of  style. 
But  it  was  not  the  vivid  New  York  stylishness.  A 
peculiar  restraint  of  line,  an  effect  of  lady-like  con 
cession  to  the  ruling  mode,  a  temperance  of  orna 
ment,  marked  the  whole  array,  and  stamped  it 
with  the  unmistakable  character  of  Boston.  Her 
clear  tints  of  lip  and  cheek  and  eye  were  incom 
parable  ;  her  blond  hair  gave  weight  to  the  poise 
of  her  delicate  head  by  its  rich  and  decent  masses. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  259 

She  had  a  look  of  independent  innocence,  an 
angelic  expression  of  extremely  nice  young  fellow 
blending  with  a  subtle  maidenly  charm.  She  in 
dicated  her  surprise  at  seeing  Mr.  Arbuton  by 
pressing  the  point  of  her  sun-umbrella  somewhat 
nervously  upon  the  floor,  and  blushing  a  very  lit 
tle.  Then  she  gave  him  her  hand  with  friendly 
frankness,  and  smiled  dazzlingly  upon  him,  while 
the  elder  hailed  him  with  effusive  assertion  of 
familiar  acquaintance,  heaping  him  with  greetings 
and  flatteries  and  cries  of  pleasure. 

"  0  dear  !  "  sighed  Kitty,  "  these  are  old  friends 
of  his ;  and  will  I  have  to  know  them  ]  Per 
haps  it 's  best  to  begin  at  once,  though,"  she 
thought. 

But  he  made  no  movement  toward  her  where 
she  sat.  The  ladies  began  to  walk  up  and  down, 
and  he  with  them.  As  they  passed  her,  he  did 
not  seem  to  see  her. 

The  ladies  said  they  were  waiting  for  their  car 
riage,  which  they  had  left  at  a  certain  point  when 
they  went  to  look  at  the  fall,  and  had  ordered  to 
take  them  up  at  the  inn.  They  talked  about  peo 
ple  and  things  that  Kitty  had  never  heard  of. 

"Have  you  seen  the  Tradings  since  you  left 
Newport  ] "  asked  the  elder  woman. 

"  No,"  said  Mr.  Arbuton. 


2 GO  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Perhaps  you  '11  be  surprised  then  —  or  per 
haps  you  won't  —  to  hear  that  we  parted  with 
them  on  the  top  of  Mount  Washington,  Thursday. 
And  the  Mayflowers  are  at  the  Glen  House.  The 
mountains  are  horribly  full.  But  what  are  you  to 
do  !  Now  the  Continent "  —  she  spoke  as  if  the 
English  Channel  divided  it  from  us  —  "  is  so  com 
mon,  you  can't  run  over  there  any  more." 

Whenever  they  walked  towards  Kitty,  this  wo 
man,  whose  quick  eye  had  detected  Mr.  Arbuton 
at  her  side  as  she  came  up  to  the  inn,  bent  upon 
the  young  girl's  face  a  stare  of  insolent  curios 
ity,  yet  with  a  front  of  such  impassive  coldness 
that  to  another  she  might  not  have  seemed  aware 
of  her  presence.  Kitty  shuddered  at  tl^  thought 
of  being  made  acquainted  with  her ;  then  she  re 
membered,  "  Why,  how  stupid  I  am  !  Of  course 
a  gentleman  can't  introduce  ladies ;  and  the  only 
thing  for  him  to  do  is  to  excuse  himself  to  them 
as  soon  as  he  can  without  rudeness,  and  come  back 
to  me."  But  none  the  less  she  felt  helpless  and 
deserted.  Though  ordinarily  so  brave,  she  was  so 
beaten  down  by  that  look,  that  for  a  glance  of  not 
unkindly  interest  that  the  young  lady  gave  her  she 
was  abjectly  grateful.  She  admired  her,  and  fancied 
that  she  could  easily  be  friends  with  such  a  girl  as 
that,  if  they  met  fairly.  Sh«  wondered  that  she 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  231 

should  be  there  with  that  other,  not  knowing  that 
society  cannot  really  make  distinctions  between 
fine  and  coarse,  and  could  not  have  given  her  a 
reason  for  their  association. 

Still  the  three  walked  up  and  down  before  Kitty, 
and  still  she  made  his  peace  with  herself  thinking, 
"  He  is  embarrassed  ;  he  can't  come  to  me  at  once  ; 
but  he  will,  of  course." 

The  elder  of  his  companions  talked  on  in  her 
loud  voice  of  this  thing  and  that,  of  her  summer, 
and  of  the  people  she  had  met,  and  of  their  places 
and  yachts  and  horses,  and  all  the  splendors  of 
their  keeping,  —  talk  which  Kitty's  aching  sense 
sometimes  caught  by  fragments,  and  sometimes  in 
full.  The  lady  used  a  slang  of  deprecation  and 
apology  for  having  come  to  such  a  queer  resort  as 
Quebec,  and  raised  her  brows  when  Mr.  Arbutou 
reluctantly  owned  how  long  he  had  been  there. 

"  Ah,  ah  !  "  she  said  briskly,  bringing  the  group 
to  a  stand-still  while  she  spoke,  "one  doesn't  stay 
in  a  slow  Canadian  city  a  whole  month  for  love  of 
the  place.  Come,  Mr.  Arbuton,  is  she  English  or 
French  T' 

Kitty's  heart  beat  thickly,  and  she  whispered  to 
herself,  "  0,  now  !  —  now  surely  he  must  do  some 
thing." 

"  Or  perhaps,"  continued  his  tormentor,  "  she  's 


2G2  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

some  fair  fellow-wanderer  in  these  Canadian  wilds, 
—  some  pretty  companion  of  voyage." 
•  Mr.  Arbuton  gave  a  kind  of  start  at  this,  like 
one  thrilled  for  an  instant  with  a  sublime  impulse. 
He  cast  a  quick,  stealthy  look  at  Kitty,  and  then 
as  suddenly  withdrew  his  glance.  What- had  hap 
pened  to  her  who  was  usually  dressed  so  prettily  ] 
Alas  !  true  to  her  resolution,  Kitty  had  again  re 
fused  Fanny's  dresses  that  morning,  and  had  faith 
fully  put  on  her  own  travelling-suit,  —  the  suit 
which  Kachel  had  made  her,  and  which  had 
seemed  so  very  well  at  Eriecreck  that  they  had 
called  Uncle  Jack  in  to  admire  it  when  it  was 
tried  on.  Now  she  knew  that  it  looked  countri 
fied,  and  its  unstylishness  struck  in  upon  her,  and 
made  her  feel  countrified  in  soul.  "  Yes,"  she  owned, 
as  she  met  Mr.  Arbuton's  glance,  "  I  'm  nothing 
but  an  awkward  milkmaid  beside  that  young  lady." 
This  was  unjust  to  herself;  but  truly  it  was  never 
in  her  present  figure  that  he  had  intended  to  show 
her  to  his  world,  which  he  had  been  sincere  enough 
in  contemning  for  her  sake  while  away  from  it. 
Confronted  with  good  jsociety  in  these  ladies,  its 
delegates,  he  doubtless  felt,  a>  never  before,  the 
vastness  of  his  self-sacrifice,  the  difficulty  of  his 
enterprise,  and  it  would  not  have  been  so  strange  if 
just  then  she  should  have  appeared  to  him  through 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  263 

the  hard  cold  vision  of  the  best  people  instead  of 
that  which  love  had  illumined.  She  saw  whatever 
purpose  toward  herself  was  in  his  eyes,  flicker  and 
die  out  as  they  fell  from  hers.  Then  she  sat  alone 
while  they  three  walked  up  and  down,  up^  and 
down,  and  the  skirts  of  the  ladies  brushed  her 
garments  in  passing. 

"  0,  where  can  Dick  and  Fanny  be  1 "  she  si 
lently  bemoaned  herself,  "and  why  don't  they 
come  and  save  me  from  these  dreadful  people '? " 

She  sat  in  a  stony  quiet  wrhile  they  talked  on, 
she  thought,  forever.  Their  voices  sounded  in  her 
ears  like  voices  heard  in  a  dream,  their  laughter 
had  a  nightmare  cruelty.  Yet  she  was  resolved 
to  be  just  to  Mr.  Arbuton,  she  was  determined 
not  meanly  to  condemn  him  ;  she  confessed  to 
herself,  with  a  glimmer  of  her  wonted  humor,  that 
her  dress  must  be  an  ordeal  of  peculiar  anguish  to 
him,  and  she  half  blamed  herself  for  her  conscien 
tiousness  in  wearing  it.  If  she  had  conceived  of 
any  such  chance  as  this,  she  would  perhaps,  she 
thought,  have  worn  Fanny's  grenadine. 

She  glanced  again  at  the  group  which  was  now 
receding  from  her.  "  Ah  ! "  the  elder  of  the 
ladies  said,  again  halting,  the  others  midway  of 
the  piazza's  length,  "  there  's  the  carriage  at  last ! 
But  what  is  that  stupid  animal  stopping  for  ]  0, 


264  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

I  suppose  he  did  n't  understand,  and  expects  to 
take  us  up  at  the  bridge  !  Provoking  !  But  it 's 
no  use  ;  we  may  as  well  go  to  him  at  once  ;  it's 
plain  he  is  n't  coming  to  us.  Mr.  Arbuton,  will 
you  see  us  on  board  1 " 

"  Who  —  1 1  Yes,  certainly,"  he  answered  -ab 
sently,  and  for  the  second  time  he  cast  a  furtive 
look  at  Kitty,  who  had  half  started  to  her  feet  in 
exiKTluf  ion  of  his  rnmiii-  to  hi-r  liofoiv  lie  went,  — 
a  look  of  appeal,  or  deprecation,  or  reassurance,  as 
she  chose  to  interpret  it,  but  after  all  a  look  only. 

She  sank  back  in  blank  rejection  of  his  look, 
and  so  remained  motionless  as  he  led  the  way 
from  the  porch  with  a  quick  and  anxious  step. 
Since  those  people  came  he  had  not  openly  recog 
nized  her  presence,  and  now  he  had  left  her  with 
out  a  word.  She  could  not  believe  what  she  could 
not  but  divine,  and  she  was  powerless  to  stir  as 
the  three  moved  down  the  road  towards  the  car 
riage.  Then  she  felt  the  tears  spring  to  her  eyes ; 
she  flung  down  her  veil,  and,  swept  on  by  a  storm 
of  grief  and  pride  and  pain,  she  hurried,  ran, 
towards  the  grounds  about  the  falls.  She  thrust 
aside  the  boy  who  took  money  at  the  gate.  "  I 
have  no  money,"  she  said  fiercely  ;  '*  I  'm  going  to 
look  for  my  friends  ;  they  're  in  here." 

But    Dick    and    Fanny   were   not    to    be    seen. 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  205 

Instead,  as  she  fluttered  wildly  about  in  search  of 
them,  she  beheld  Mr.  Arbuton,  who  had  missed  her 
on  his  return  to  the  inn,  coming  with  a  frightened 
face  to  look  for  her.  She  had  hoped  somehow 
never  to  see  him  again  in  the  world  ;  but  since  it 
was  to  be,  she  stood  still  and  waited  his  approach 
in  a  strange  composure  ;  while  he  drew  nearer, 
thinking "hyw  yesterday  he  had  silenced  her  pro 
phetic"  (toubt  of  him  :  "  I  have  one  answer  to  all 
this ;  I  love  you."  Her  faltering  words,  verified 
so  fatally  soon,  recalled  themselves  to  him  with 
intolerable  accusation.  And  what  should  he  say 
now  ]  If  possibly,  —  if  by  some  miracle,  —  she 
might  not  have  seen  what  he  feared  she  must ! 
One  glance  that  he  dared  give  her  taught  him 
better ;  and  while  she  waited  for  him  to  speak,  he 
could  not  lure  any  of  the  phrases,  of  which  the  air 
seemed  full,  to  serve  him. 

"  I  wonder  you  came  back  to  me,"  she  said  after 
an  eternal  moment. 

"  Came  back  ] "  he  echoed,  vacantly. 

"  You  seemed  to  have  forgotten  my  exist 
ence  !  " 

Of  course  the  whole  wrong,  if  any  wrong  had 

been  done  to  her,  was  tacit,  and  much  might  be 

said  to  prove  that  she  felt  needlessly  aggrieved, 

and  that  he  could  not  have  acted  otherwise  than 

12 


266  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

as  he  did ;  she  herself  had  owned  that  it  must  be 
an  embarrassing  position  to  hirn. 

"  Why,  what  have  I  done,"  he  began,  "  what 
makes  you  think  ....  For  heaven's  sake  listen 
to  me  !  "  he  cried  ;  and  then,  while  she  turned  a 
mute  attentive  face  to  him,  he  stood  silent  as  be 
fore,  like  one  who  has  lost  his  thought,  and  strives 
to  recall  what  he  was  going  to  say.  "  What  sense, 
—  what  use,"  he  resumed  at  last,  as  if  continuing 
the  course  of  some  previous  argument,  "  would 
there  have  been  in  making  a  display  of  our  ac 
quaintance  before  them?  I  did  not  suppose  at 
first  that  they  saw  us  together."  ....  But  here 
he  broke  off,  and,  indeed,  his  explanation  had  but 
a  mean  effect  when  put  into  words.  "  I  did  not 
expect  them  to  stay.  I  thought  they  would  go 
away  every  moment ;  and  then  at  last  it  was  too 
late  to  manage  the  affair  without  seeming  to  force 
it."  This  was  better  ;  and  he  paused  again,  for 
some  sign  of  acquiescence  from  Kitty,  and  caught 
her  eye  fixed  on  his  face  in  what  seemed  contempt 
uous  wonder.  His  own  eyes  fell,  and  ran  uneasily 
over  her  dress  before  he  lifted  them  and  began  once 
more,  as  if  freshly  inspired  :  "  I  coidd  have  wished 
you  to  be  known  to  my  friends  with  every  advan 
tage  on  your  side,"  and  this  had  such  a  magnani 
mous  sound  that  he  took  courage;  "and  you  ought 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  2G7 

to  have  had  faith  enough  in  me  to  believe  that  I 
never  could  have  meant  you  a  slight.  If  you  had 
known  more  of  the  world,  —  if  your  social  experi 
ence  had  been  greater  you  would  have  seen  .... 
Oh  !"  he  cried,  desperately,  "  is  there  nothing  you 
have  to  say  to  me  ? " 

"No,"  said  Kitty,  simply,  but  with  a  languid 
quiet,  and  shrinking  from  speech  as  from  an  added 
pang.  "  You  have  been  telling  me  that  you  were 
ashamed  of  me  in  this  dress  before  those  people. 
But  I  knew  that  already.  What  do  you  want  me 
to  do  1 " 

"  If  you  give  me  time,  I  can  make  everything 
clear  to  you." 

"  But  now  you  don't  deny  it." 

"  Deny  what  1     I  —  " 

But  here  the  whole  fabric  of  Mr.  Arbuton's  de 
fence  toppled  to  the  ground.  He  was  a  man  of 
scrupulous  truth,  not  accustomed  to  deceive  him 
self  or  others.  He  had  been  ashamed  of  her,  he 
coidd  not  deny  it,  not  to  keep  the  love  that  was 
now  dearer  to  him  than  life.  He  saw  it  with 
paralyzing  clearness  ;  and,  as  an  inexorable  fact 
that  confounded  quite  as  much  as  it  dismayed 
him,  he  perceived  that  throughout  that  ignoble 
scene  she  had  been  the  gentle  person  and  he  the 
vulgar  one.  How  could  it  have  happened  with  a 


2G8  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

man  like  him  !  As  he  looked  back  upon  it,  he 
seemed  to  have  been  only  the  helpless  sport  of  a 
sinister  chance. 

But  now  he  must  act ;  it  could  not  go  so,  it 
was  too  horrible  a  thing  to  let  stand  confessed.  A 
hundred  protests  thronged  to  his  lips,  but  he 
refused  utterance  to  them  all  as  worse  even  than 
silence;  and  so,  still  meaning  to  speak,  he  could 
not  speak.  He  could  only  stand  and  wait  while  it 
wrung  his  heart  to  see  her  trembling,  grieving 
lips. 

His  own  aspect  was  so  lamentable,  that  she  half 
pitied  him,  half  respected  him  for  his  truth's  sake. 
"  You  were  right ;  I  think  it  won't  be  necessary 
for  me  to  go  to  Boston,"  she  said  with  a  dim  smile. 
"  Good  by.  It  's  all  been  a  dreadful,  dreadful 
mistake." 

It  was  like  him,  even  in  that  humiliation,  not  to 
have  thought  of  losing  her,  not  to  have  dreamed 
but  that  he  could  somehow  repair  his  error,  and 
she  would  yet  willingly  be  his.  "  0  no,  no,  no," 
he  cried,  starting  forward,  "  don't  say  that !  It 
can't  be,  it  must  n't  be  !  You  are  angry  now,  but  I 
know  you  '11  see  it  differently.  Don't  be  so  quick 
with  me,  with  yourself.  I  will  do  anything,  say 
anything,  you  like." 

The  tears  stood  in  her  eyes ;  but  they  were  cruel 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  2G9 

drops.  "  You  can't  say  anything  that  would  n't 
make  it  worse.  You  can't  undo  what 's  been  done, 
and  that 's  only  a  little  part  of  what  could  n't  be 
undone.  The  best  way  is  for  us  to  part ;  it  's  the 
only  way." 

"  No,  there  are  all  the  ways  in  the  world  be 
sides  !  Wait  —  think  !  —  I  implore  you  not  to  bo 
so  —  precipitate." 

The  unfortunate  word  incensed  her  the  more ; 
it  intimated  that  she  was  ignorantly  throwing  too 
much  away.     "  I  am  not  rash  now,  but  I  was  very 
rash  half  an  hour  ago.     I  shall  not  change  my 
mind  again.     0,"  she  cried,  giving  way,  "it  is  n't 
what  you  've  done,  but  what  you  are  and  what  / 
am,  that  's  the  great  trouble  !      I  could  easily  for 
give  what  's  happened, — if  you  asked  it;  but  I 
could  n't  alter  both  our  whole  lives,  or  make  my 
self  over  again,  and  you  could  n't  change  yourself. 
Perhaps  you  would  try,  and  I  know  that  I  would, 
but  it  would  be  a  wretched  failure  and  disappoint 
ment  as  long  as  we  lived.     I  've  learnt  a  great  dea 
since  I  first  saw  those  people."     And  in  truth  h 
felt  as  if  the  young  girl  whom  he  had  been  meanin 
to  lift  to  a  higher  level  than  her  own  at  his  sid 
had  somehow  suddenly  grown  beyond  him  ;  and  hi 
heart  sank.     "  It 's  foolish  to  try  to  argue  such 
thing,  but  it 's  true  ;  and  you  must  let  me  go." 


270  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  I  can't  let  you  go,"  he  said  in  such  a  way,  that 
she  longed  at  least  to  part  kindly  with  him. 

"  You  can  make  it  hard  for  me,"  she  answered, 
"but  the  end  will  be  the  same." 

"  I  won't  make  it  hard  for  you,  then,"  he  re 
turned,  after  a  pause,  in  which  he  grew  paler  and 
she  stood  with  a  wan  face  plucking  the  red  leaves 
from  a  low  bough  that  stretched  itself  towards  her. 

He  turned  and  walked  away  some  steps ;  then 
he  came  suddenly  back.  "  I  wish  to  express  my 
regret,"  he  began  formally,  and  with  his  old  air  of 
doing  what  was  required  of  him  as  a  gentleman, 
"that  I  should  have  unintentionally  done  anything 
to  wound  — 

"0,  better  not  speak  of  that"  interrupted  Kitty 
with  bitterness,  "  it  's  all  over  now."  And  the 
final  tinge  of  superiority  in  his  manner  made  her 
give  him  a  little  stab  of  dismissal.  "  Good  by. 
I  see  my  cousins  coming." 

She  stood  and  watched  him  walk  awaj^,  the  sun 
light  playing  on  his  figure  through  the  mantling 
leaves,  till  he  passed  out  of  the  grove. 

*The  cataract  roared  with  a  seven-fold  tumult 
in  her  ears,  and  danced  before  her  eyes.  All 
things  swam  together,  as  in  her  blurred  sight  her 
cousins  came  wavering  towards  her. 

"  Where  is  Mr.  Arbutou  1 "  asked  Mrs.  Ellison. 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  271 

Kitty  threw  her  arms  about  the  neck  of  that 
foolish  woman,  whose  loving  heart  she  could  not 
doubt,  and  clung  sobbing  to  her.  "Gone,"  she 
said ;  and  Mrs.  Ellison,  wise  for  once,  asked 
no  more. 

She  had  the  whole  story  that  evening,  without 
asking;  and  whilst  she  raged,  she  approved  of 
Kitty,  and  covered  her  with  praises  and  condo 
lences. 

"  Why,  of  course,  Fanny,  I  did  n't  care  for  knowing 
those  people.  What  should  I  want  to  know  them  for] 
But  what  hurt  me  was  that  he  should  so  postpone 
me  to  them,  and  ignore  me  before  them,  and  leave 
me  without  a  word,  then,  when  T  ought  to  have  been 
everything  in  the  world  to  him  and  first  of  all. 
I  believe  things  came  to  me  while  I  sat  there,  as 
they  do  to  drowning  people,  all  at  once,  and  I  saw/ 
the  whole  affair  more  distinctly  than  ever  I  did.j 
We  were  too  far  apart  in  what  we  had  been  and  what  \ 
we  believed  in  arid  respected,  ever  to  grow  really 
together.  And  if  he  gave  me  the  highest  position 
in  the  world,  I  should  have  only  that.  He  never 
could  like  the  people  who  had  been  good  to  me, 
and  whom  I  loved  so  dearly,  and  he  only  could  like 
me  as  far  as  he  could  estrange  me  from  them.  If 
he  could  coolly  put  me  aside  now,  how  would  it  be 
afterwards  with  the  rest,  and  with  me  too  ?  That 's 


272  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

what  flushed  through  me,  and  I  don't  believe  that 
getting  splendidly  married  is  as  good  as  being-  true 
to  the  love  that  came  long  before,  and  honestly 
living  your  own  life  out,  without  fear  or  trembling, 
whatever  it  is.  So  perhaps,"  said  Kitty,  with  a 
fresh  burst  of  tears,  "you  needn't  condole  with 
me  so  mueh,  Fanny.  Perhaps  if  you  had  seen 
him,  you  would  have  thought  he  was  the  one  to  be 
pitied.  /  pitied  him,  though  he  was  so  cruel. 
When  he  first  turned  to  meet  them,  you  'd  have 
thought  he  was  a  man  sentenced  to  death,  or 
under  some  dreadful  spell  or  other ;  and  while  he 
was  walking  up  and  down  listening  to  that  horri 
ble  comical  old  woman,  —  the  young  lady  did  n't 
talk  much,  —  and  trying  to  make  straight  answers 
to  her,  and  to  look  as  if  I  did  n't  exist,  it  was  the 
most  ridiculous  thing  in  the  world." 

"  How  queer  you  are,  Kitty  !  " 

"  Yes ;  but  you  need  n't  think  I  did  n't  feel  it. 
I  seemed  to  be  like  two  persons  sitting  there,  one 
in  agony,  and  one  just  coolly  watching  it.  But 
0,"  she  broke  out  again  while  Fanny  held  her 
closer  in  her  arms,  "  how  could  he  have  done  it, 
how  could  he  have  acted  so  towards  me ;  and  just 
after  I  had  begun  to  think  him  so  generous  and 
noble  !  It  seems  too  dreadful  to  be  true."  And 
with  this  Kitty  kissed  her  cousin  and  they  had  a 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  273 

little  cry  together  over  the  trust  so  done  to  death  ; 
and  Kitty  dried  her  eyes,  and  bade  Fanny  a  brave 
good-night,  and  went  off  to  weep  again,  upon  her 
pillow. 

But  before  that,  she  called  Fanny  to  her  door, 
and  with  a  smile  breaking  through  the  trouble  of 
her  face,  she  asked,  "  How  do  you  suppose  he  got 
back]  I  never  thought  of  it  before." 

"  Oh!"  cried  Mrs.  Ellison  with  profound  disgust, 
"  I  hope  he  had  to  walk  back.  But  I  'm  afraid 
there  were  only  too  many  chances  for  him  to  ride. 
I  dare  say  he  could  get  a  calash  at  the  hotel 
there." 

Kittv  had  not  spoken  a  word  of  reproach  to 
Fanny  for  her  part  in  promoting  this  hapless 
affair ;  and  when  the  latter,  returning  to  her  own 
room,  found  the  colonel  there,  she  told  him  the 
story  and  then  began  to  discern  that  she  was  not 
without  credit  for  Kitty's  fortunate  escape,  as  she 
called  it. 

I       "  Yes,"  said  the  colonel,  "  under  exactly  similar 

1  circumstances  she  '11  know  just  what  to  expect  an- 

\  other  time,  if  that 's  any  comfort." 

*      "  It  's  a  great  comfort,"  retorted  Mrs.  Ellison  ; 

"you  can't  find  out  what  the  world  is,  too  soon,  I 

can  tell  you ;  and  if  I  had  n't  manoeuvred  a  little 

to  bring  them  together,  Kitty  might  have  gone  off 

12*  K 


274  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

with  some  lingering  fancy  for  him  ;  and  think  what 
a  misfortune  that  would  have  been  ! " 

"Horrible." 

"And  now,  she '11  not  have  a  single  regret  for 
him." 

"  I  should  think  not,"  said  the  colonel :  and  he 
spoke  in  a  tone  of  such  dejection,  that  it  went  to 
his  wife's  heart  more  than  any  reproach  of  Kitty's 
could  have  done.  "  You  're  all  right,  and  nobody 
blames  you,  Fanny ;  but  if  you  think  it  's  well  for 
such  a  girl  as  Kitty  to  find  out  that  a  man  who 
has  had  the  best  that  the  world  can  give,  and  has 
really  some  fine  qualities  of  his  own,  can  be  such  a 
poor  devil,  after  all,  then  /  don't.  She  may  be 
the  wiser  for  it,  but  you  know  she  won't  be  the 
happier." 

"  0  don't,  Dick,  don't  speak  seriously !  It  's  so 
dreadful  from  you.  If  you  feel  so  about  it,  why 
don't  you  do  something." 

"  0  yes,  there  's  a  fine  opening.  We  know, 
because  we  know  ever  so  much  more,  how  the  case 
really  is ;  but  the  way  it  seems  to  stand  is,  that 
Kitty  could  n't  bear  to  have  him  show7  civility  to 
his  friends,  and  ran  away,  and  then  would  n't  give 
him  a  chance  to  explain.  Besides,  what  coidd  I 
do  under  any  circumstances  1 " 

"  Well,  Dick,  of  course  you  're  right,  and  I  wish 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  275 

I  could  see  things  as  clearly  as  you  do.  But  I 
really  believe  Kitty  's  glad  to  be  out  of  it." 

"  What  1 "  thundered  the  colonel. 

"  I  think  Kitty  's  secretly  relieved  to  have  it  all 
over.  But  you  need  n't  stun  me." 

"  You  do  ?  "  The  colonel  paused  as  if  to  gain 
force  enough  for  a  reply.  But  after  waiting,  noth 
ing  whatever  came  to  him,  and  he  wound  up  his 
watch. 

"  To  be  sure,"  added  Mrs.  Ellison  thoughtfully, 
after  a  pause,  "  she  's  giving  up  a  great  deal ;  and 
she  '11  probably  never  have  such  another  chance  as 
long  as  she  lives." 

"  I  hope  she  won't,"  said  the  colonel. 

"  0,  you  need  n't  pretend  that  a  high  position 
and  the  social  advantages  he  could  have  given  her 
are  to  be  despised." 

"  No,  you  heartless  worldling  ;  and  neither  are 
peace  of  mind,  and  self-respect,  and  whole  feelings, 
and  your  little  joke." 

"  0,  you  —  you  sickly  sentimentalist !  " 

"  That 's  what  they  used  to  call  us  in  the  good 
old  abolition  days,"  laughed  the  colonel ;  and  the 
two  being  quite  alone,  they  made  their  peace  with 
a  kiss,  and  were  as  happy  for  the  moment  as  if 
they  had  thereby  assuaged  Kitty's  grief  and  mor 
tification. 


276  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

"  Besides,  Fanny,"  continued  the  colonel, 
"  though  I  'in  not  much  on  religion,  I  believe 
these  things  are  ordered." 

"  Don't  be  blasphemous,  Colonel  Ellison  ! "  cried 
his  wife,  who  represented  the  church  if  not  religion 
in  her  family.  "  As  if  Providence  had  anything  to 
do  with  love-affairs  !  " 

"  Well,  I  won't ;  but  I  will  say  that  if  Kitty 
turned  her  back  on  Mr.  Arbuton  and  the  social 
advantages  he  could  offer  her,  it 's  a  sign  she  was 
n't  fit  for  them.  And,  poor  thing,  if  she  does  n't 
know  how  much  she  's  lost,  why  she  has  the  less 
to  grieve  over.  If  she  thinks  she  could  n't  be 
happy  with  a  husband  who  would  keep  her  snubbed 
and  frightened  after  he  lifted  her  from  her  lowly 
sphere,  and  would  tremble  whenever  she  met  any 
of  his  own  sort,  of  course  it  may  be  a  sad  mis 
take,  but  it  can't  be  helped.  She  must  go  back  to 
Eriecreek,  and  try  to  worry  along  without  him. 
Perhaps  she'll  work  out  her  destiny  some  other 
way." 


A  Chance  Acquaintance.  277 

XIV. 

AFTERWARDS. 

IRS.  ELLISON  had  Kitty's  whole  story, 
and  so   has  the  reader,  but  for  a  little 
thing  that  happened  next  day,  and  which 
is  perhaps  scarcely  worthy  of  being  set  down. 

Mr.  Arbutoii's  valise  was  sent  for  at  night  from 
the  Hotel  St.  Louis,  and  they  did  not  see  him 
again.  When  Kitty  woke  next  morning,  a  fine 
cold  rain  was  falling  upon  the  drooping  hollyhocks 
in  the  Ursulines'  Garden,  which  seemed  stricken 
through  every  leaf  and  flower  with  sudden  autumn. 
All  the  forenoon  the  garden-paths  remained  empty, 
bat  under  the  porch  by  the  poplars  sat  the  slender 
nun  and  the  stout  nun  side  by  side,  and  held  each 
other's  hands.  They  did  not  move,  they  did  not 
appear  to  speak. 

The  fine  cold  rain  was  still  falling  as  Kitty  and 
Fanny  drove  down  Mountain  Street  toward  the 
Railway  Station,  whither  Dick  and  the  baggage 
had  preceded  them,  for  they  were  going  away  from 
Quebec.  Midway,  their  carriage  was  stopped  by  a 
mass  of  ascending  vehicles,  and  their  driver  drew 


278  A   Chance  Acquaintance. 

rein  till  the  press  was  over.  At  the  same  time 
Kitty  saw  advancing  up  the  sidewalk  a  figure 
grotesquely  resembling  Mr.  Arbuton.  It  was  he, 
but  shorter,  and  smaller,  and  meaner.  Then  it 
was  not  he,  but  only  a  light  overcoat  like  his  cov 
ering  a  very  common  little  man  about  whom  it 
hung  loosely,  —  a  burlesque  of  Mr.  Arbuton's  self- 
respectful  overcoat,  or  the  garment  itself  in  a  state 
of  miserable  yet  comical  collapse. 

"  What  is  that  ridiculous  little  wretch  staring  at 
you  for,  Kitty  1 "  asked  Fanny. 

"  I  don't  know,"  answered  Kitty,  absently. 

The  man  was  now  smiling  and  gesturing  vio 
lently.  Kitty  remembered  having  seen  him  before, 
and  then  recognized  the  cooper  who  had  released 
Mr.  Arbuton  from  the  dog  in  the  Sault  an  Matelot, 
and  to  whom  he  had  given  his  lacerated  overcoat. 

The  little  creature  awkwardly  unbuttoned  the 
garment,  and  took  from  the  breast-pocket  a  few 
letters,  which  he  handed  to  Kitty,  talking  eagerly 
in  French  all  the  time. 

11  What  is  he  doing,  Kitty  1 " 

"  What  is  he  saying,  Fanny  ? " 

"  Something  about  a  ferocious  dog  that  was 
going  to  spring  upon  you,  and  the  young  gentle 
man  being  brave  as  a  lion  and  rushing  forward,  and 
saving  your  life."  Mrs.  Ellison  was  not  a  woman 


A   Chance  Acquaintance.  279 

to  let  her  translation  lack  color,  even  though  the 
original  wanted  it. 

"  Make  him  tell  it  again." 

"When  the  man  had  done  so,  "Yes,"  sighed 
Kitty,  "it  all  happened  that  day  of  the  Mont 
gomery  expedition ;  but  I  never  knew,  before,  of 
what  he  had  done  for  me.  Faulty,"  she  cried,  with 
a  great  sob,  "  may  be  I  'm  the  one  who  has  been 
cruel  ?  But  what  happened  yesterday  makes  his 
having  saved  my  life  seem  such  a  very  little  matter." 

"  Nothing  at  all !  "  answered  Fanny,  "  less  than 
nothing  !  "  But  her  heart  failed  her. 

The  little  cooper  had  bowed  himself  away,  and 
was  climbing  the  hill,  Mr.  Arbuton's  coat-skirts 
striking  his  heels  as  he  walked. 

"  What  letters  are  those  ? "  asked  Fanny. 

"0,  old  letters  to  Mr.  Arbuton,  which  he  found 
in  the  pocket.  I  suppose  he  thought  I  would  give 
them  to  him." 

"  But  how  are  you  going  to  do  it  ? " 

"  I  ought  to  send  them  to  him,"  answered 
Kitty.  Then,  after  a  silence  that  lasted  till  they 
reached  the  boat,  she  handed  the  letters  to  Fanny. 
"  Dick  may  send  them,"  she  said. 

THE   END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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BOOOWS'W 


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